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LIGHT 

INTERVIEWS 
WITH 
SHADES 



ROBERT 

WEBSTER 

JONES 



LIGHT INTERVIEWS 
WITH SHADES 

BY 
ROBERT WEBSTER JONES 




Publishers DORRANCE Philadelphia 



c<*\a 



COPYRIGHT 1921 
DORRANCE & COMPANY, INC. 






MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



NOV 11 '22 



^ n A u Q A 3 2 1 



CONTENTS 



I Bluebeard Tells Why He Killed 

Wives 11 

II Queen Elizabeth Discloses Why 

She Never Married 20 

III John Paul Jones and A Grogless 

Navy 29 

IV Joshua Advises Daylight Saving 37 
V King Solomon 's Family Vacation 

Trip 43 

VI Brigham Young Endorses Woman 

Suffrage 50 

VII Hippocrates on Modern Doctors 56 
VIII Methuselah Gives Longevity 

Secrets 66 

IX Jesse James Talks on Tipping. . . 75 
X Shakespeare Mentions Movies. . 80 
XI Adam Condemns Present Fash- 
ions 88 

XII Captain Kidd Speaks on Tag Days 96 



CONTENTS 

XIII Alfred the Great Tries to Find 

Prosperous King 102 

XIV Old King Cole Gives Views on 

Pkohibition Ill 

XV King Henry VIII Admits Some 

Matkimonial Mistakes 116 

XVI Don Quixote Says He "Wasn't 
So Crazy as Some Modern 

BeFORMERS" 123 

XVII Pharaoh Solves Servant Prob- 
lem 129 

XVIII Nero Discusses Jazz 137 

XIX Lord Bacon Muses on Ciphers . . 145 



LIGHT 
INTERVIEWS 
WITH 
SHADES 



LIGHT INTERVIEWS 
WITH SHADES 

i 

BLUEBEAKD TELLS WHY HE KILLED WIVES 

I drew this assignment to interview the shade 
of Bluebeard because our girl reporter backed 
out at the last minute, — said she had no objec- 
tion to a nice, ladylike assignment such as get- 
ting Pharaoh's daughter to talk about Annette 
Kellerman or having a chat with Joan of Ark, 
or whatever Mrs. Noah's name was, but she 
balked at calling on a wife murderer who had 
never been introduced. 

If I had not been warned in advance I should 
have thought this was surely an impostor — a 
barefaced one, too, for he wore no beard — to 
whose room I was ushered by a bellboy of the 
Olympus Hotel. 

"Surprised at my appearance, eh!" he 
chuckled. "Everybody is. Expect to see a 
ferocious-looking monster with a long blue 
beard and a bowie knife sticking out of his belt. 
It's about time the folks down below got the 

11 



12 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

real facts, not only of my appearance but of my 
character. That's why IVe consented for the 
first time to talk for publication. I want to be 
set right in the eyes of those mistaken mortals. 
You are a young man and unmarried, I pre- 
sume, from your happy, carefree countenance. 
Well, then, here is a thing I hope you'll learn 
by heart: where singleness is bliss 'tis folly to 
have wives. IVe tried it and I know. I, too, 
was once a happy, cheerful, careless bachelor, 
like Adam, you know. And like Adam I didn't 
get my eyes opened until after marriage. By 
the way, speaking of Adam, did you ever pause 
to think that not until marriage came into the 
world did man have to dig for a living? Yet I 
digress. What I started out to say was that 
marriage is an excellent institution, but like all 
good things, it can be overdone. My mistake 
was in being too idealistic. I had resolved to 
find the ideal, the perfect wife, the kind you 
read about in poetry (a perfect woman, nobly 
planned, to warn, to comfort and command). 
Well, my first wife laid too much emphasis on 
the l command. ' She took it literally. I found 
I had made a mistake and decided to bury it. 
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. 
Clementina was her name. She was not of a 
trustful nature. Invariably her first greeting 
on my returning home late at night took the 



BLUEBEARD 13 

sharply interrogatory form: * Where have you 
been?' Frequently I would have been glad to 
tell her, only I could not remember. It has 
been said that ' absence makes the heart grow 
fonder,' but it did not seem to work out that 
way worth a cent at three o'clock in the morn- 
ing. We had words, she seeking to obtain what 
she termed the Mast' one. But still there were 
always more to follow. 

"I came in time to feel that I did not possess 
that treasure of treasures, a wife 's perfect con- 
fidence in her husband. One night, I remember, 
I started to get into bed with my overcoat on. 
It was merely a bit of harmless absent-minded- 
ness. But Clementina continued to refer to the 
trifling incident daily, and nightly, for weeks 
afterwards. She even communicated the cir- 
cumstance to friends and relatives, including 
her maternal parent, who naturally had no 
interest in the subject. When we were invited 
out to dinner she employed the incident as a 
conversational topic. I begged her to desist. 
She refused. I realized that it was high time to 
'try again.' I need not go into details. But 
Clementina ceased to trouble and the weary 
was at rest. The coroner was a personal 
friend of mine. I had voted for him in three 
different precincts, and he kindly brought in 
a verdict of ' justifiable uxoricide,' or some- 



14 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

thing of that sort, and everything was nice 
and comfortable. 

"That was Clementina. Now let me see — 
let me see — who came next? Susannah? No, 
she was Number Three, Pm pretty sure. My 
memory isn't what it used to be, but if I only 
had my old card index here I could tell you 
in two seconds. Sapphira? No, she came 
later. Oh, now I've got it: Maria, Yes, 1 
had) to get rid of Maria within a year. Nice, 
amiable girl she was, too, in most respects. 
Always had the meals on time, never hauled 
me out at night to call on the new neighbors, 
would rather darn socks for her husband than 
crochet a new sweater for herself, and had an 
impediment in her speech. I'd often heard 
there were such women, with impediments in 
their speech, but had never met one before. 
I thought it was a recommendation, but I was 
mistaken. It only made her take that much 
longer to say what she was going to say, any- 
way. When Maria and the impediment clashed 
it was always Maria that finally won out. But 
it took time. Verbally Maria required a long 
time to pass a given point, but she kept on 
until she passed it. Maria had one great fault. 
You're not married, young man, and you may 
not grasp this defect in all its hideousness. 



BLUEBEARD 15 

But this was it: she always talked to me when 
I was trying to shave. 

"At that time I wore a beard, but no side- 
whiskers, and I shaved every morning before 
breakfast. It was Maria's invariable habit to 
stand at the bathroom door and engage in con- 
versation — or rather monologue interspersed 
with questions. In consequence I got to 
spending more money for court-plaster than 
for shaving soap. A man stopped me on the 
street one day, gave a second look at my liber- 
ally-scarred countenance, and hailed me as a 
fellow graduate of Heidelberg. Finally, I de- 
cided that this business had gone on long 
enough. I gave Maria fair warning. The very 
next morning she stuck her head in at the door, 
just as I was trying to steer around a pimple 
below my right ear, and told me not to forget 
to bring home those lamb chops for dinner. I 
cut a gash an inch long and dropped the razor 
on the floor. That was Maria's farewell ap- 
pearance. There was no demand for an en- 
core. The coroner kindly found that the im- 
pediment in her speech had stuck in her throat 
and she had choked to death. He was a good 
scout, 

"And now we come to Susannah, Number 
Three, Series N. G. Susannah started out 
splendidly. She came highly recommended. I 



16 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

thought she was going to be one of the best 
wives I ever had. But, like all the others, she 
soon disclosed a fatal failing. I call it 'fatal' 
because it always turned out that way for all 
my wives. It may seem a trifle to you, young 
man, but that's because you've never been 
married. The trouble was this, and it soon 
got on my sensitive nerves: the only time I 
could get Susannah's absorbed, undivided at- 
tention was when I talked in my sleep. Then, 
I have reason to believe, she would sit up and 
listen by the hour. But at other times she 
might as well have been totally deaf, so far as 
paying attention to what I was trying to say 
was concerned. She always seemed to be 
thinking of something — I hope it wasn't some- 
body — else. I'd start telling her about a busi- 
ness deal I'd just put through with some fellows 
up at Bagdad, or begin discussing the chances 
of the Damascus ball team for winning the 
pennant next year, and before I'd talked ten 
minutes I'd see as plain as day that she wasn't 
hearing a word I said. 

" She'd contracted the crocheting habit, too 
— -I don't know where she picked it up — and 
she'd work away, whispering to herself and 
nodding at me every now and then, until I 
thought I'd go wild. One night while I was 
right in the midst of telling her a funny story 



BLUEBEARD 17 

I'd heard at the Khayyam Country Club, she 
actually interrupted me to remark that she'd 
just found a new way of purling 14 by casting 
off 11 and dropping 34, or something of the 
sort, and I just up and—and — Well, there's 
no need to harrow your feelings. Suffice it to 
say that I added one more to the Association 
of Former Mothers-in-Law of Bluebeard. 
Whenever one of my wives departed this life 
rather suddenly the ex-mothers-in-law always 
held a sort of indignation meeting. Sometimes 
they passed resolutions, too. But it didn't 
seem to do any good. Just advertised the fact 
that I was a widower again. Didn't seem to 
prejudice the girls against me. In fact, one 
leap-year I had to get a lot of rejection slips 
printed, like the magazine editors use, for re- 
plying to proposals. I read somewhere once 
that it always made a fellow popular to get a 
reputation as a lady-killer, and I seem to have 
proved it. 

"And so it went. All the undertakers in 
town were trying to stand in with me. But I 
thought they went a little too far when they 
adopted a set of appreciative resolutions and 
invited me to address their annual convention. 
Some folks have no sense of propriety. The 
preachers showed more tact. It's true that 
one offered to do all my marrying on the basis 



18 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

of a yearly contract, but that was a strictly 
private, business arrangement, the same as I 
had with the firm of caterers and liverymen 
which supplied both cakes and camels. I could 
go on all night telling you about my other 
wives and the causes of their sudden shufflings- 
off — Sapphira, who objected to my smoking in 
the front parlor; Anastasia, who believed the 
adjective 'annual,' as applied to house-clean- 
ings, meant every week; Boadicea, who was 
strong for women's rights, but refused to go 
downstairs first to tackle the burglar; Sheba, 
who took me along when she went shopping 
and parked me for two hours outside a depart- 
ment store ; Delilah the Second, who wanted to 
cut my hair so as to save enough money to 
get herself a new winter hat, as if my over- 
head charges weren't high enough already. 
These are just a few samples from my sou- 
venir collection of matrimonial misfits that I 
happen to recall offhand. The proverb says, 
'A word to the wives is sufficient,' but I never 
found it so. Not by a long shot. I found ac- 
tion more effective than words. They say big- 
amy means one wife too many; but so does 
monogamy sometimes. If my experience 
helps other married men I shall be glad to 
have given this interview. I like to talk, be- 
cause nowadays I feel I can do so without 



BLUEBEAED 19 

interrupting some wife or other. Just one 
word more, and then good night: 

" There is no marrying in heaven. Fools 
rush in where angels fear to tread." 



II 



QUEEN ELIZABETH DISCLOSES WHY SHE NEVER 
MARRIED 

* i Nothing would have induced me to talk for 
publication, ' ' said Queen Elizabeth, as she 
negligently lit a cigarette and with a graceful 
gesture invited me to take a seat, "if you 
hadn't printed that interview with that horrid 
old Bluebeard last week. They used to say 
that I was a heartless coquette, and that all 
the men were losing their heads over me. Well, 
if a young man had come to ask me, around the 
year 1588, why I had never married — as you 
have just done — he'd have lost his head in just 
about the time it would have taken the chief 
executioner to respond to a hurry call. But 
times have changed and we change with them. 
History has done many cruel wrongs to my 
memory, and I want to be set right. I didn't 
stay single for lack of proposals, I can tell 
you. Why, before I was sixteen the front yard 
of our palace looked like a college campus, it 
was so full all the time of young men carry- 
ing flowers and boxes of candy and ringing the 

20 



QUEEN ELIZABETH 21 

doorbell, wanting to know if Princess Eliza- 
beth were in. I had every other girl in Eng- 
land jealous of me, if I do say it myself. But 
I saw too much of marriage at home. My 
father did enough marrying for the whole 
family. 

"Life got to be just one stepmother after 
another. I began to lose count. I decided that 
one member of the family had given enough of 
a boost to the institution of matrimony, and it 
didn 't need any further endorsement from me. 
I soon appreciated the truth of the saying, 
'Man proposes.' I got so many proposals I 
had my maids of honor knit a lot of mittens to 
hand to the fellows as a souvenir. Finally the 
men saw I was in earnest and let me alone; 
that is to say, most of them. A few foolish 
fellows continued to write poetry (that is what 
they called it) and send presents, but my mind 
was made up and I refused to change it. It 
was about this time that our court fool re- 
marked that woman's favorite occupations 
were changing her mind, her clothes and her 
name. And about five minutes afterward he 
changed his permanent address to the Tower 
of London. All the world's a stage, as my 
friend Shakespeare used to say, and ninety- 
nine out of a hundred men consider themselves 



22 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

perfectly equipped for the role of comedian. 
But it's possible to be too fatally funny. 

"Now, about that interview with Brother 
Bluebeard last week, I suppose he thought 
he was funny when he said about the only 
time a man gets his wife's absorbed, undivided 
attention is when he talks in his sleep. But 
that's about the only time a man says anything 
worth listening to. It just made my blood 
boil— that man Bluebeard calmly talking about 
the wives he'd killed. Not that I believe half 
of it. He was only boasting. And that re- 
minds me: there used to be an organization 
called the Ananias Club. But who ever heard 
of a Sapphira Club? There wouldn't be 
enough members to hold a meeting in a tele- 
phone booth. But 'all men are liars,' and 
married ones have more ready-made oppor- 
tunities. It has been estimated that in a mar- 
ried lifetime of forty years the average man 
will be called upon to answer the perfectly 
reasonable inquiry, 'Where have you been?' 
14,610 times. This calculation allows for 365 
answers in each ordinary year and 366 in leap- 
years. And when her husband replies to her 
altogether proper interrogation, too often the 
wife realizes, like the Queen of Sheba, that the 
half has not been told her. 

"From Ananias to Munchausen and down 



QUEEN ELIZABETH 23 

to the modern press agent, the experts at ex- 
aggeration have all been men. Fishermen's 
tales and sailors' yarns are proverbial. A 
woman trying to tell a lie feels like a fish out 
of water, and at the first opportunity flops 
back into the ocean of truth. 

"There's another slander on women I'd like 
to say a few words about, and that's the charge 
of talkativeness. Men have always flocked to 
the talkative professions like ducks to water. 
Most lawyers and barbers are men. Are there 
any women auctioneers! There are few wo- 
men preachers. There was a time when all the 
talking in the world was done by one man, 
but there was no conversation until the arrival 
of Eve. She did the listening. It is essential 
to conversation that there be a listener, and 
man's happiness was not complete until there 
was somebody to hear him talk. The average 
husband loves to deliver home lectures on base- 
ball in summer and politics in winter. Here 
we have the reason for the popularity of 
women's clubs. No man being present, they 
have a chance to talk. Go into any church 
Sunday morning and what do you see? An 
audience composed principally of women 
listening to a man talking. The recording 
angel who tries to keep up with a man has to 
be an expert at taking lightning dictation. 



24 INTEEVIEWS WITH SHADES 

One of the newest works in three large vol- 
umes is entitled, 'Last Words of Great Men.' 
The edition makes no pretensions to being 
complete That, of course, would be impos- 
sible when we have had so many great men, 
all of them talking steadily to the last But 
it is worth noting that we have only meagre 
records of the last words of anjy great woman. 
Poor thing! With her husband, and a man 
doctor and a clergyman at her bedside, what 
chance would she have? 

"Ill admit that there have been a few of 
the so-called great men of history who have 
not been noted for their love of talk, but when 
such a man is discovered everybody calls at- 
tention to him as if he were a genuine curiosity 
of nature. He is usually given a nickname in- 
dicative of his peculiarity, such as William the 
Silent, and people travel miles to get a look 
at him. Practically every man is Speaker of 
the House, and in his case the title is no mis- 
nomer. For instance, it's a question whether 
all the ancient martyrs put together ever said 
as much about their sufferings as one modern 
man with a boil on his neck. Man even goes 
ahead and invents <new languages like Esper- 
anto and baseball, and golf. 

4 'Wives of great men most remind us that 
they talked all of the time, and departing left 



QUEEN ELIZABETH 25 

behind them words that were not worth a dime. 
Isn't that what one of your own American 
poets said? Sounds something like it, any- 
way. 

"But you wanted to know just why I never 
married. Well, it was because of these nasty 
flings at women by the men that I've just been 
speaking of. If they say such things before 
marriage, what won't they say after? They're 
always talking about women's curiosity, start- 
ing with Eve and the apple. I suppose if there 
had been a Saturday Eden Post, Adam would 
have written alleged jokes about it or run a 
funny department called ' Musings of a Mar- 
ried Man.' I blame that Eve and her apple 
story for this eternal joshing about feminine 
curiosity. You needn't look surprised, young 
man. I'm talking twentieth not sixteenth cen- 
tury language these days, and since yours is 
a family newspaper probably it's just as well 
that I am. When I was queen you'd have 
thought the English language consisted princi- 
pally of proper nouns and improper adjectives. 
We called a spade a spade, and then some. 
If a lady disliked a gentleman she didn't say 
he was a mean old thing. She began by calling 
him a diabolical blackguard and horse thief, 
and then gradually grew abusive. 

" Woman's curiosity! All the census-takers 



26 INTEEVIEWS WITH SHADES 

and private detectives and professional Paul 
Pry's who stick their noses into other people's 
businesses are men. So are all the explorers, 
the individuals who are so curious to find out 
what's going on at the other end of the earth 
that they can't content themselves at home. 
If, in the history of the world, a woman has 
ever been seized by an overwhelming desire to 
see what the North Pole looks like, she has 
cleverly concealed the fact. While the men 
were organizing North Pole and South Pole 
expeditions, and relief expeditions, and expe- 
ditions to rescue the relief expeditions, the 
wives and mothers remained patiently on the 
job at home. And when the missing discover- 
ers came back covered with hero medals, and 
suffering from chilblains, and writer's cramp, 
and lecturer's sore throat, and coupon-clip- 
per's thumb, the women never asked why 
heroine medals seem so scarce these days. 
Talk about curiosity! There's a universal in- 
quiry which is being put by some man to some 
woman in some part of the world at every 
second of every minute of the twenty-four 
hours, and it is this: 'What did you do with 
that LAST money I gave }you?' There it is 
again, that insatiable curiosity of man which 
will not let him rest. Man is a perambulating 
question mark, the personification of the rising 



QUEEN ELIZABETH 27 

inflection, a chronic case of interrogationitis. 
And he has the nerve to talk about woman's 
curiosity ! ' ' 

"How about Sir Walter Raleigh?" 

"Ah, young man, there are exceptions to 
every rule, and a woman is generally willing 
to take an exception. Walter was an awfully 
nice fellow, at first, but I was dreadfully dis- 
appointed in him. Do you know, that business 
of the velvet cloak and the mud puddle was 
only what you would call a grandstand play? 
I found out later. It was his last winter's 
cloak, and he was just on his way to the Char- 
ing Cross rummage sale to give it away, when 
he happened to meet me. I know it's so, be- 
cause I got it straight at the meeting of the 
Westminster Sewing Society from the Count- 
ess of Leicester's sister-in-law, who said she 
was told by the cousin of a woman who knew 
an intimate friend of a friend of Walter 
Raleigh's aunt. And she said he actually 
laughed about it afterward! 

"Do you wonder I stayed single? Perhaps 
I've said too much already, but one word more 
and I am finished. Do you know, young man, 
why women say marriage is a lottery! It is 
because they draw most of the blanks." 

Subdued, but with a sigh of relief, I with- 
drew hastily from the royal presence, feeling 



28 INTEBVIEWS WITH SHADES 

that "man's inhumanity to man" wouldn't be 
a marker to what would have happened to 
Queen Elizabeth's husband. 



m 

JOHN PAUL JONES AND A GROGLESS NAVY 

'•Interview your great-uncle and find out 
what he thinks of our modern navy," said the 
city editor. 

"My great-uncle? " I asked. 

"Admiral J. Paul Jones. Wasn't he one of 
your distinguished relatives! YouVe got . the 
same name.' ' 

"Oh, Uncle John! I believe we are related, 
but he was one of the rough specimens — sort of 
a piece of bark on the family tree — other side 
of the family, you know." 

' ' Well, you may find his bark worse than his 
bite." 

"Which planet is his shade living on now, do 
you know?" 

"Neptune, I presume." 

And that is where I found him. He gave me 
genial greeting. 

"Shiver my timbers, but Pm glad to see you. 
Come alongside and cast anchor, my lad, and 
tell me what wind blew you here." 

I explained that the mighty world below was 
29 



30 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

palpitating for a few timely remarks from its 
old fighting hero. 

' i Fire away, then, ' ' he replied. ' ' What 's the 
first question ?" 

4 ' Do you believe, Admiral, ' ' I asked, l l that a 
navy can be run on water — that is to say, of 
course, the ships have to run on water . . . but 

I mean the men. Do you think " And then 

I got tangled up and came to a full stop, for the 
expression on the old sea dog's face was a mix- 
ture of puzzlement and pugnacity. 

"What do you mean?" he roared. "Not to 
give the men water in place of grog!" 

His attitude was positively menacing. I be- 
gan to grow nervous. 

< < Why-er — that is the idea, Admiral. Do you 
believe it is possible to conduct a navy effici- 
ently on prohibition principles?" 

' i Prohibition ? Never heard the word before. 
And now that I have heard it I don't like the 
sound of it. What are you jibbing and wind- 
jamming in this way for! Come right out and 
run up your true colors. Do you mean to tell 
me that anybody is seriously proposing to do 
away with grog in the American Navy? Pd 
hang the dastardly rascal from the yard-arm. 
Walking the plank would be too good for him." 

' ' Well, Admiral, you might as well know the 
whole truth. Grog has not only been abolished 



JOHN PAUL JONES 31 

in the Navy (and that took place some years 
ago), grog has been abolished throughout the 
country. Liquor can neither be manufactured 
nor sold anywhere in the United States.' ' 

Perhaps I should have broken the startling 
news to the old fellow more gently. But instead 
of the expected outburst of anger he sat 
stunned, still as a statue, or a speak-easy in 
Harlem. 

For two minutes or more he kept silent. 
Then he spoke. "Say it again/ ' he muttered 
in a weak tone, "and say it slow." 

I complied. 

"No grog for them as fights the battles, no 
whiskey, no brandy, no shandy-gaff, no Ja- 
maikey rum, nothin' but milk and water. What 
kind o ' putty-faced swabs — But I needn 't ask. 
I see it now. You've been conquered by them 
Turks and water-drinking Mohammedans. But 
who'd have thought it?" And he shook his 
grizzled head disconsolately. "No whiskey, no 
brandy, no shandy-gaff, no Jamaikey rum," he 
went on muttering to himself as in a daze, over 
and over again, until I thought it might be ad- 
visable to recall him to himself. 

"America thinks a great deal of you, Ad- 
miral," I interrupted his melancholy mono- 
logue. "The nation cherishes the memory of 



32 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

your thrilling exploits. It will never forget 
your heroic deeds." 

The old Admiral brightened up a bit at this, 
but quickly relapsed into his melancholy mood. 
"No whiskey, no brandy — " he began again, 
when I tried the effect of another diversion. 

* ' The nation is still safe, Admiral, and it has 
the largest number of ships and sailors in its 
history. The recent great war produced its 
heroes, too. We do not lack for defenders, you 
will be glad to know, if ever America is as- 
sailed again. " 

"Yes, I've heard something about it," ne 
grumblingly admitted. * i There 's a new-fangled 
cowardly sort of craft that goes under water 
and stabs in the back, a regular assassin, I call 
it. Farragut and Perry and some of the boys 
went down to perform at a seance in Philadel- 
phia the other night, and they heard a lot of 
talk about your new naval heroes that have 
made us back numbers. There was Sims, and 
Daniels, and Benson, and — and — Admiral 
What's-his-name? I can't just think of it. 
Gray? No. that's not it exactly. Admiral — 
Admiral — " 

"Not Grayson?" 

"Yes, that's it, Rear Admiral Grayson. His 
flagship was the George Washington, I believe. 



JOHN PAUL JONES 33 

And Admiral Denby, what did he do? I just 
can't recollect on the moment. " 

"Mr. Denby is not an Admiral; he's the Sec- 
retary of the Navy. He's not supposed to go to 
sea. He sits at a desk, instead of standing on 
a deck. ,, 

"Oh, I see. But Bear Admiral Grayson? I 
wish you would describe some of his exploits 
to me. ' f 

""Wtell-er — that's a little difficult to explain, 
Admiral Jones, for you have been so long out 
of touch with our system. Admiral Grayson 
is really a doctor, and — " 

"You mean the admirals say he is a doctor 
and the doctors say he is an admiral ?" 

' * Oh, no, Admiral, not so bad as that. He is 
a medical admiral, not a fighting admiral. Rear 
Doctor — I mean Rear Admiral — Grayson was 
a naval surgeon, and he has been regularly pro- 
moted to the post of rear admiral. His job was 
looking after the President's health, and all 
agree that he tendered good service." 

"Oh, a medical admiral, eh?" grumbled the 
old sea dog in a disappointed tone. "So that's 
what he is. I can see him now, standing on the 
bridge of the good ship Calomel, stethoscope in 
hand, studying the symptoms of the approach- 
ing foe, writing the battle orders on prescrip- 



34 INTEBVIEWS WITH SHADES 

tion blanks and getting ready to fire a volley of 
quinine pills, three times a day before meals, at 
the hated enemy. I can see him taking the 
temperatures of the crew before going into 
action, and then, with a lancet in one hand and 
a scalpel in the other, preparing to repel 
boarders. I can see him charging the enemy 
(five dollars a visit, halfprice for office calls, 
consultations fifteen, operations, what youVe 
got) I can hear the ringing words of command 
to candidates for vaccination: * Present arms.' 
I can see him, with his trusty clinical ther- 
mometer and his rapid firing hypodermic, 
bravely — " 

"YouVe got the wrong idea, entirely, 
Admiral Jones," I hastened to interrupt. "It's 
different from your day. None of our admirals 
do any hand-to hand encounters. There are no 
more clashes at close quarters. Sometimes 
ships fight each other four or five miles apart ' ' 

The grizzled veteran looked as if he scarcely 
understood what I was saying. 

"No coming together with grappling irons, 
and fighting it out fair and square with pistols 
anoV cutlasses on the quarterdeck? A modern 
naval battle is just a long-distance artillery 
duel between Sunday School classes composed 
of total abstainers, as likely as not commanded 



JOHN PAUL JONES 35 

by a specialist on whooping cough and measles? 
I guess it's a good thing I shuffled off when I 
did. In my time a sea fight was more a matter 
of men than of machinery. I wouldn't know 
how to go about it today. Everything is 
changed. I'm sure I'd forget to order a double 
round of hot lemonade for all the crew, instead 
of a stiff glass of grog, before going into an en- 
gagement. I must tell Farragut about it. I sup- 
pose they wouldn't let him say anything stronger 
than 'Dam the torpedoes,' or ' Oh, fudge,' 
if he were down on the job today. And Com- 
modore Perry: 'We have met the enemy and 
made 'em all sign the pledge.' That's the sort 
of message he'd be expected to send nowadays. 
I suppose with all these new-fangled inventions 
you've been telling me about, wireless, and 
range-finders, and searchlights, and turbines, 
and seaplanes and torpedoes and all the rest of 
'em, a fellow has to stay sober to work 'em. In 
my day we always considered that a man 
fought better when he was about three sheets 
in the wind. I don't say our ways were perfect, 
but I'm sure I wouldn't feel at home on one of 
your big floating machine shops. I'd forget 
myself sometimes and want to get close enough 
to the enemy to see him without a telescope — 
or a stethescope. 



36 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

" Well, you'll have to excuse me now, my lad. 
I have a date with Lord Nelson for three 
o'clock, tot join in the historic and comforting 
ceremony known as splicing the main brace. 
Ill break the news to him about what you've 
just been telling me. He 11 need a bracer after 
he hears it." 

And as the old hero hobbled away I could 
hear him muttering to himself: "No whiskey, 
no brandy, no shandy-gaff, no Jamaikey rum; 
water, water everywhere, but not a drop o' 
drink." 



IV 

JOSHUA ADVISES DAYLIGHT SAVING 

"How about an interview with one of the 
shades on daylight saving?" I suggested 
timidly, as the city editor was racking what he 
calls his brain in search of a suitable assign- 
ment. 

"Right! Get hold of one of the old astrono- 
mers, Galileo, or Ike Newton, or — or — " 

* ' How would Joshua \do f ' ' 

"Joshua? You don't mean Josh WhitcomM 
He wasn't a real character. He was only — M 

"No, I mean the Biblical Joshua — fellow who 
made the sun stand still. That's what our 
modern clock-fixers are trying to do. And as 
the pioneer, the original inventor of the scheme, 
a few views on his twentieth century imitators 
ought to be interesting." 

"Go to it. He can't make the situation any 
more confusing than it is already." 

I found the ancient prophet reclining under 
his own vine and fig tree, studying a brightly 
colored seed catalogue. With alacrity he ac- 
cepted my invitation to talk for publication. 

37 



38 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

1 ' Daylight saving, eh? ' ' he mused. " It's odd 
how you moderns never seem to get any ideas 
of your own. Always the same old thing over 
again. There's nothing new under the sun. 
And now you're trying to beat old Tempus 
Fidgets with what you imagine is a brand new 
scheme, but really is older than Solomon's 
mother-in-law. What do you expect to get out 
of it, anyway?" 

I started to explain how getting up an hour 
earlier in the morning through putting the 
clocks ahead gave us an additional hour of day- 
light at the other end of the day, when the old 
prophet cut in: "Just fooling yourselves, eh, 
a great, big game of make-believe by grown-ups 
in order to have a little more time for play? 
You move the clock forward and pretend it's an 
hour later, by general agreement? Well, why 
don't you extend the idea while you're about 
it and apply it to other things besides clocks 
and time?" 

"What, for instance, Mr. Joshua?" 

"Well, take the thermometer, an instrument 
that's been invented since my time. When I 
lived on earth we never suffered much from 
either heat or cold, because we hadn't any 
thermometers to tell us that we were uncom- 
fortable. If it were one hundred and ten in 
the mighty scarce shade out on the desert, we 



JOSHUA 39 

didn't know it. Eighty-five or a hundred and 
fifteen — it was all the same to us. We never 
had any hot waves. There were no daily lists 
of heat victims. The thermometer liar was 
unknown. Nobody was initiated into the 
Ananias Club for boasting that the thermome- 
ter on his back porch hadn't in fifteen years 
varied a degree from the official weatherman's. 
We may have felt a little warmer under the 
mantle some days than others, but we couldn't 
tell in degrees how uncomfortable we were, and 
so we were spared a lot of suffering. It's the 
thermometer that makes you moderns take such 
a morbid interest in the weather. If you hadn't 
any means of measuring the heat and the cold, 
why, you wouldn't care anything about them. 
I was a prophet, but I never went so far as to 
dare to prophesy the weather. I knew my limi- 
tations. But your government guessers, backed 
up by their thermometers, seem willing to take 
any chances. Now, I suppose it's too much to 
expect you to abolish your worrisome ther- 
mometers entirely, but why not take a hint 
from your daylight saving business and tinker- 
ing with the clock twice a year, and do a little 
fixing of your thermometers? 

"For example? Well, for a beginning you 
would have to adopt a new kind of thermometer 
with changeable or removable figures. On April 



40 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

first of each year let everybody mark his ther- 
mometer down ten degrees. That is to say, the 
present figure ninety would be replaced by 
eighty, and eighty by seventy, and so on. The 
first hot spell would prove the practicability of 
the device. The scheme is purely psychological, 
of course, but so is daylight saving. Under the 
old pessimistic thermometer, which has done 
so much to encourage the Society for the Pro- 
motion of Justifiable Profanity, the tempera- 
ture, we will say, would be eighty-five degrees 
in the shade, provided you could find any. But 
according to the marked-down thermometer it 
would be only seventy-five, just warm enough 
to sit comfortably on the front porch and smoke 
your pipe and read the paper while your wife 
was washing the dishes in the kitchen. Then in 
mid-July along comes what, under the old 
arrangement, would have been a regular 
scorcher, with the mercury registering ninety- 
two and all the meteorological Munchausens in 
town down at the corner drugstore boasting 
that their pet instruments were registering one 
hundred and two plus, in the shade. But the 
optimistic thermometer, operating under the 
universal heat-saving law, would record only 
eighty-two degrees. And everybody would be 
comparatively cool and comfortable. In fact, 



JOSHUA 41 

you would practically never have it ninety 
degrees in your climate. 

4 * Think what that would mean to perspiring 
humanity ! For we all know how the thermome- 
ter affects our feelings. And the optimistic ther- 
mometer would work just as well in winter as 
in summer. It would only be necessary to mark 
it up ten extra degrees in October. Then you 
would have mighty few zero days. The saving 
in coal would be tremendous, for we all regulate 
the heating apparatus by the thermometer in- 
stead of the feelings. The optimistic ther- 
mometer in winter would register seventy de- 
grees in the living room when the old-fashioned 
instrument would have made it only sixty. Isn't 
that as sensible as daylight saving?" 

"It is certainly a novel idea, Mr. Joshua," 
I replied in a non-committal tone. "You seem 
to be carrying out to the logical extreme the 
Scriptural theory that as a man thinketh in his 
heart so is he. Do you know of any other 
pratical application of the principle V r 

"It is capable of indefinite extension," 
responded the ancient prophet. "Take the 
matter of people's ages. Lots of folks are so 
sensitive on the subject that it makes them 
unhappy and others are discriminated against 
in business or the professions because they 
happen to be a year or two past an arbitrary 



42 INTEKVIEWS WITH SHADES 

age limit ani have a bit of gray in their hair. 
Now, why not by common agreement let every- 
body over the age of forty mark down his or 
her age ten years? We are all as old, not as we 
look or feel, but as we think we are. If we can 
say it is only five o'clock when it's six, then 
we can assume we are only fifty years old when, 
according to the strict, literal calculation, we 
are really sixty. Let's give psychology a 
chance." 

' i Fine idea, Mr. Joshua, Make believe that 
it's an hour later or earlier than it is, that it is 
ten degrees hotter or colder than it is, and that 
we are all ten years younger than the record 
says. We live largely in a world of self-delusion 
anyway. That is what makes living endurable. 
You would only carry the principle a little 
farther, if I understand you. But there's one 
little device for human happiness I wish you 
would add to the others." 

"And that is?" 

"A barometer that will always predict fair 
weather when I want to play golf Sunday morn- 
ing and rain if my wife wants me to go to 
church." 

But from the look the prophet gave me I saw 
that Joshua couldn't be joshed with impunity, 
and leaping into my astral airplane I glided 
back to good old terra firma. 



KING SOLOMON 's FAMILY VACATION TRIP 



"Mjy wife has just told me where we are 
going to spend my summer vacation, ' f remark- 
ed the city editor. "It's been said that nothing 
is absolutely certain in this world, but it's as 
sure as anything can be that I'm going to spend 
my three weeks just where the missus tells me. 
Wje never have any discussion on the subject 
at our house — none of that mountains or sea- 
shore business George Ade wrote about, ending 
in a compromise on the wife's favorite 
mountains. But it's always a relief when the 
suspense is over and the annual announcement 
by friend wife is made. 

"And that reminds me; how about an inter- 
view with one of the shades on the modern 
vacation, summer resorts and all that sort of 
thing? Got anybody in mind for it? Noah? 
No, that trip of his was no summer vacation 
picnic. Suppose you ask Solomon how he 
managed the annual vacation business with all 
those wives of his. They tell me he was the 

43 



44 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

wisest man that ever lived, and I'll say he need- 
ed to be." 

I was gratified to find the shade of the former 
monarch and much-married man not at all 
averse to talking for publication. "You see," 
he observed with an apologetic smile, "I don't 
often get the opportunity to talk without being 
interrupted. It's quite refreshing i I to have an 
appreciative, interested listener. Fortunately 
you have come on the very day when the Wives 
and Daughters of Solomon Association is hold- 
ing its annual convention, and the mothers-in- 
law also are attending in their capacity of 
honorary members. They haven't the privilege 
of voting — only of speaking from the floor — but 
that's quite satisfactory. They don't care 
where they speak from so long as they speak. 

"And so, as I have said, we can have a cozy 
little chat. What did you want me to talk 
about? Summer vacations? My boy, I could 
tells you things about the trips I have taken in 
my capacity as a multiple husband that would 
dissuade you from matrimony ever after. But 
I do not wish to relate all the harrowing details. 
I'll just give you a hint. 

"Well, to start at the beginning, during the 
first few years of my married life the summer 
vacation germ spared our happy home. But 
as I gradually added more wives to my collec- 



KING SOLOMON 45 

tion, an agitation was begun to get me to take 
them away somewhere for the summer. The 
wives began to find fault with the Jerusalem 
climate. 

' i They started to criticise what they called 
the stuffy little rooms of the royal palace. They 
suggested that other families were closing their 
houses, or renting them furnished for the sum- 
mer, >and going to the shore of the Mediter- 
ranean, where resorts had sprung up that 
advertised paradoxically cool breezes and a hot 
old time. They made life so miserable for me 
that finally one day, after a committee of wives 
had presented the subject and threatened that 
they would all go away to Mediterranean City 
on their own hook if I didn't consent, I yielded. 

* ' And then ensued such a season of prepara- 
tion as I hope I shall never have to go 
through again. Four hundred ^new trunks 
bought, four hundred new summer outfits 
ordered. The palace as if by magic became 
filled with seamstresses and fitters and millinery 
architects and all sorts of strange women I had 
never seen before. You couldn 9 t walk down the 
front stairs without stumbling over a seam- 
stress or two. 

1 i The parlor, the living room, the library, all 
seemed full of sewing societies. Perfect 
strangers thronged the halls, their mouths full 



46 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

of pins, and tape measures hung around their 
necks. 

"And then, the night before we were to de- 
part, a special committee of wives called on me 
to exhibit the standardized bathing suit they 
had decided upon and get my official 0. K. At 
first I was inclined to criticise — and then I 
reflected what a very, an exceedingly small 
thing it was to quarrel about — and graciously 
gave my consent. 

"The next day we left Jerusalem for Med- 
iterranean City. And we created some sen- 
sation. I headed the procession, followed by 
the Mesdames Solomon mounted on the four 
hundred camels. Then came a detachment of 
mothers-in-law on army mules (they were 
invited to come in relays during the summer) 
and the first instalment of the baggage train 
brought up the rear. 

* * The second instalment was to come next day 
with the things the wives had forgotten and 
sent back for. And other baggage trains were 
to follow from time to time during the sum- 
mer, as needed. 

"We were several days upon the journey. 
Before leaving I had not felt that I needed a 
vacation, but before we finally arrived at Medi- 
terranean City I was ready for the rest cure. 

"You see, traveling in those days was not like 



KING SOLOMON 47 

what it is now. A camel with shock absorbers 
and air-cushion springs might be a comfortable 
vehicle, I should imagine, but in his primitive 
state a camel's motion is quite different from 
that of a limousine or a parlor car. Rubber 
heels had not been invented or I would surely 
have had our camels equipped with them. 

"We had to camp out along the roadside 
several nights, and none of the wives were used 
to that. And they did not hesitate to express 
their feelings. We had started out with a goat 
among our numerous menagerie, but at an early 
stage of the proceedings he escaped into the 
desert — doubtless in search of peace and quiet. 

" However, he was not missed. I took his 
place. It was a role to which, in spite of my 
royal rank, I was accustomed. Everything that 
went wrong — and that meant practically every- 
thing that happened from start to finish — was 
blamed on me. I was even accused of having 
planned and perpetrated the excursion, when I 
had never had the slightest notion of leaving 
Jerusalem until they suggested it. Finally my 
patience was exhausted, and I up and told them 
if they didn't like it they could go to Jericho. 
Then, as now, Jericho was far from being an 
ideal place of summer residence, and their com- 
plaints gradually ceased. 

"Well, we finally arrived at Mediterranean 



48 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

City, and then our sorrows began in earnest. I 
don't know whether you have ever had any 
practical experience with the Mediterranean 
mosquito. I have never been quite able to for- 
give Noah for bringing 'em into the ark. A re- 
ception committee of these pests met us at the 
city gate and escorted us to the Hotel Paymore 
— so were stung twice — when we arrived and 
when we paid the bill on our departure. 

1 ' The first hitch came when the clerk started 
assigning the rooms. It seems there were only 
some two hundred with an ocean view — and 
four hundred wives demanding a room apiece. 
The clerk threw up his hands and appealed to 
me. He had heard of some puzzling problems I 
had solved in my capacity as the world's cham- 
pion wise man — I threw up my hands and ap- 
pealed to the proprietor. And he joined in the 
pleasing indoor pastime, known as passing the 
buck, by sending in a riot call for the police. 
But they didn't come. They were men of long 
experience, and they knew better than to come 
between man and wives. 

"The upshot was that we drew lots for the 
first night, the arrangement after that being to 
take turns occupying rooms with the ocean 
view. As for myself, with my usual benign 
disposition, I took a six-by-nine chamber — a 
room commanding a splendid prospect of the 



KING SOLOMON 49 

great desert. But I had learned not to be too 
particular. 

"I cannot say that I enjoyed my first and 
only family summer vacation. Think of four 
hundred wives wanting to be taken out rowing 
every day! Think of being required to affix 
wriggling angle-worms to four hundred separ- 
ate and distinct fish-hooks! I need not enter 
into details. These samples are sufficient. 

"It is enough to say that after the regular 
vacation period was over I was compelled, on 
the advice of my chief physician, to enter the 
Jerusalem Sanitarium and Rest Cure in order 
to recuperate. It was i never again' for me. 

"I hear there is some complaining today 
among married men over having to take their 
wives to the seashore or the mountains. But 
they should pause to consider that their experi- 
ence, at worst, can be only one four-hundredth 
as strenuous and wearing as was mine. I re- 
member the day we got back home to the palace 
in Jerusalem. Every last one of those wives 
was so glad to be back that she went up to her 
room and had what she called ' a good cry/ " 
"And what did you do, Your Majesty?" 
"Oh, I went down cellar and took a smile.' ' 
And, notwithstanding my citizenship in the 
dryest nation on earth, I felt that Solomon had 
richly earned that spirituous solace. 



VI 

BBIGHAM YOUNG ENDORSES WOMAN SUFFRAGE 

"I've got a job for you that's some assign- 
ment. You say you always have to suggest the 
subjects for these interviews with the shades. 
Well, here's one for you that I thought of last 
night all by myself. Interview Collector Brig- 
ham Young on woman suffrage." 

"Collector Young? I can't quite recall on 
the moment. Let's see: what did he collect V 

"Wives. Had one of the largest modern col- 
lections on record. When they were young 
used to calP em his souvenir spoons. You may 
have a tough time getting him to talk, but if 
you succeed it ought to be hot stuff. I can 
imagine what Brigham Young would think of 
woman suffrage." 

But my usually infallible city editor was 
wrong on both points. Collector Young was 
not averse to talking for publication, and his 
views on woman suffrage were quite different 
from those he might have been presumed to 
hold. 

' * Take a seat. Glad to see you, ' ' he exclaimed 
50 



BRIGHAM YOUNG 51 

with all the affability I had been accustomed to 
receive during my adventures in interviewing 
illustrious spirits. "Thought I mightn't wish 
to talk for publication? Why, Pll talk for any- 
thing. Mighty glad of the opportunity. I talk 
now on the slightest provocation. Sometimes 
when there's nobody else to talk to I talk to 
myself. Do you realize, young man, what it 
was to have forty-nine wives, simultaneously, 
and just about how much chance a husband had 
to get in an occasional remark edgewise ? And 
as for getting the last word in a more or less 
animated discussion ! Why, it always looked as 
if there never were going to be any last word. 

"But after my extensive and varied matri- 
monial experience, as I have said, you can im- 
agine the amount of pent-up opinions, the quan- 
tity of suppressed conversation I still have in 
my system. For thirty-two years my principal 
role in life was that of silent listener. Think of 
having to sit still and listen to forty-nine sepa- 
rate and distinct, and largely contradictory, re- 
ports of the meeting of the Mount Zion Mis- 
sionary and Sewing Society! Think of listen- 
ing every Sunday afternoon to forty-nine indi- 
vidual criticisms, chiefly destructive, of the 
feminine fashions observed in the congregation ! 
Imagine the position of a so-called head of the 
house who could never utter a word without in- 



52 INTEKVIEWS WITH SHADES 

terrupting somebody or other! But the most 
maddening experience I had to undergo was 
when they all came down with the crocheting 
craze at the same time — or else the knitting 
mania — another form of feminine insanity — 
it's all one to me. When the spell was on they 
wouldn't talk to anyone else or let anyone 
else talk to them. It put them out of their 
count, they said. But they'd sit there in the 
front parlor — the whole regiment of them — and 
knit away, muttering some mysterious words to 
themselves. And never condescending to ex- 
plain to a mere man what it was all about. They 
declared that would be 'casting purls before 
swine.' The click-click-click of the needles, 
forty-nine pairs of them all going at once, 
would sound like a knitting mill running full 
blast. And they always knitted in the evening, 
the time they insisted on my being at home. 
Said it made them nervous to be left alone in 
the house at night. Why, the forty-nine of 
them could have talked an ordinary burglar to 
death in half an hour and robbed him of his 
tools. But they thought they ought to have a 
man's protection. ' ' 

"That reminds me, Mr. Young, of something 
I wanted to ask you before I knew you were 
going to be so courteously communicative. You 
will pardon me, I know, but I have often won- 



BRIGHAM YOUNG 53 

dered how certain things were managed in 
such a-er-er — such a numerous establishment. 
For instance, the average husband with only- 
one wife expects to be asked where he has been 
when he returns home late at night, but if he 
had forty-nine matrimonial partners, why, 
er-er — " 

"You want to know whether they would all 
ask him at once! No, sir. That wasn't the 
arrangement. We had committees for all such 
matters. Otherwise there would have been in- 
tolerable confusion. It would never have done 
in the world. A husband might inadvertently 
give twenty or thirty different — er-er — explan- 
ations of his unavoidable tardiness, and then 
when they got to comparing notes there would 
have been trouble. As I have said, we had 
committees. There was a committee on late 
returns and excuses, a committee for seeing that 
husband wore his rubbers to the office, a com- 
mittee for reminding him to get his hair cut, 
a committee on new hats and gowns for sum- 
mer and other seasons, a committee to get him 
to put on the screen doors in May, a committee 
to remind him about birthdays one week in ad- 
vance, a committee for — oh, everything you can 
imagine. It was like a Legislature or Congress 
— except that instead of one there were forty- 
nine Speakers in the House.' ' 



54 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

"Very interesting, Mr. Young, I am sure. 
But I was instructed to get your views on 
woman suffrage. Do you approve of women 
voting 1" 

"I don't quite like the form of your question. 
Put it this way: do I object to women voting? 
I do not, for two reasons : first, I know better, 
after my extensive experience, than to object to 
anything women want to do, since it can do no 
good ; and second, since women run things, any- 
way, to suit themselves, the act of voting is 
merely a symbol or ceremony of registration of 
their power. They were the real rulers before 
they got the ballot, and the vote isn't going to 
change the situation any. The only hitch I see 
will come if the women can't make up their 
minds as to just what and whom they want to 
vote for. I suppose in states where women 
have never voted before there may be a little 
trouble with those who have changed their 
minds after casting their ballot and want to 
"get it back for a minute to add a postscript. 
But on the whole I don't see why any man — 
any married one at least — should object to wo- 
man suffrage. Since the average voter gets his 
instructions from a political boss, anyway, it 
might be more convenient to have that boss in 
the family. Woman is assuming new duties and 
responsibilities every day. The hand that used 



BRIGHAM YOUNG 55 

to roll the baby carriage now rolls the ciga- 
rette." 

"You have spoken, Mr. Young," I remarked 
as I rose to depart, "as if the wife were always 
the ruler, the autocrat of the home. Are you 
aware that the Census Bureau now officially 
recognizes the husband as the head of the 
house 1" 

Brigham smiled sadly as he replied: "Yes; 
but they only take a census once in ten years. ' ' 

And I tiptoed silently from the pathetic pres- 
ence of one who had married not wisely, but too 
much. 



VII 

HIPPOCRATES ON MODERN DOCTORS 

"What did you say about a hip-pocket !" 
queried the city editor suspiciously. ' i I want a 
drink as much as any man, but since prohibition 
arrived no camel has had anything on me. I 
believe in respecting the law even if — " 

"I didn't say anything about a hip-pocket, ' ' 
I cut in. "I said it might be a good scheme to 
interview old Hippocrates, the Father of Medi- 
cine, and find out what he thinks about modern 
doctors and surgeons and professional etiquette 
and whether times have improved any since he 
was in active practice a couple of thousand 
years ago. What do you think of the idea?" 

"Go to it," responded the C. E., "but be 
careful he doesn't try to charge you 'for pro- 
fessional advice.' Make him understand that 
we're doing the favor, not he. He ought to 
be glad of the free advertising. He'll say at 
first he doesn't want any publicity — it is un- 
ethical. See if he doesn't. These doctors are 
all alike. I know 'em." 

Much to my surprise the city editor's cynical 
56 



HIPPOCEATES 57 

prediction was verified by my victim's opening 
remarks. "You want me to talk for publica- 
tion, young man ? ' ' said the Father of Medicine. 
"You're sure you're not a representative of an 
eastern publishing house who has been author- 
ized to place a few copies of a new encyclopedia 
with a selected number of the most prominent 
citizens, absolutely free of charge, on payment 
of a dollar down and five dollars a month for 
twenty years ! ' ' 

Somewhat mystified, I replied in the negative. 

"And you're not demonstrating from purely 
philanthropic motives — the only charge being 
for packing and postage — a new tonic guaran- 
teed to make the baldest pate blossom into a 
Paderewski?" 

"No, sir, I'm not an agent of any kind. I 
have nothing to sell." 

"You are certain you are not promoting the 
sale of a new absolutely talk-proof safety razor 
for married men whose wives insist on convers- 
ing while they are trying to shave themselves! 
Or a new hip-pocket Testament holding one 
pint? Or a machine for manufacturing cigars 
at home, in anticipation of the next Great Re- 
form? Or a self -spelling typewriter for busi- 
ness college graduates! You are not selling 
stock in a gold mine in Iceland at fifty cents 
par today, but price to be raised positively next 



58 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

Monday at ten o'clock to a dollar and a half, 
all shares guaranteed non-assessable and non- 
returnable? You are not the agent for a com- 
bination snow-shovel and lawn-mower, especi- 
ally designed for the North American climate, 
transposable at a moment's notice? You are 
not selling diamond-studded coupon clippers for 
profiteers or self -finding collar buttons, or — " 

"My dear sir, I have nothing to sell at all. 
I am a reporter and I want — " 

"Oh, a reporter? Well, why didn't you say 
so at first, instead of causing all this confusion 
and waste of breath? I've been so bothered 
with agents of every sort lately that I can't 
sleep nights. I told one that the other day and 
he pulled a bottle out of his bag and tried to 
sell me an infallible cure for insomnia. I re- 
solved not to let another one into my house. 
But you're a reporter, eh? That's a refreshing 
novelty around here. Come in. 

"But you must know that I never talk for 
publication. I have never done such a thing in 
my entire professional career. It would be 
entirely contrary to the ethics of my sacred 
calling. Somebody might say I was trying to 
advertise myself. You know doctors can't be 
too careful. We never advertise. We may oc- 
casionally consent, under pressure, to the publi- 
cation of an item in the society column saying 



HIPPOCRATES 59 

that 'Dr. Theophilus Sawbones of 52896 Arnica 
Avenue has returned after a two weeks' trip to 
Atlantic City and resumed his practice. ' But 
that isn 't advertising. That T s news. You never 
see a surgeon, for instance, descending to the 
low commercial plane of your merchants, and 
announcing in a display advertisement: 'Cut 
rates all this week at Dr. Carvem's. Now is 
the time to get that appendix cut out. All 
operations marked down. Special bargains in 
tonsils. ■ 

"No, sir. We have an exalted code of ethics 
in our profession, I am happy to say, dating 
from the time when I founded the practice of 
medicine. But if you are sure a few timely re- 
marks from me will not be misinterpreted and 
regarded as an attempt on my part to get into 
the limelight, I am at your service to the extent 
of about a column and a half, offered for ac- 
ceptance at your regular rates, to be run next 
reading matter.' " 

"I am certain, doctor," I responded, "that 
the world will attribute no self -promoting mo- 
tives to one enjoying .ty"our long and honorable 
reputation. Do you note many changes in the 
practice of medicine since the days when you 
were in the harness f" 

"Well," responded Hippocrates as he 
thoughtfully stroked his long beard, "there 



60 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

seem to be more different kinds of doctors now- 
adays than we had in 400 B. C. We didn't know 
anything about specialists in our time. We 
were not merely general practitioners ; we were 
universal practitioners. 

"Suppose, for instance, a prosperous citizen 
of Athens had the gout, indigestion, corns, heart 
murmur, rheumatism, torpidity of the liver and 
clergyman's sore throat — seven ailments in all. 
He sent for me and I treated all his diseases at 
the same time. While he had a combination of 
diseases, we knew any good doctor would under- 
stand the combination. 

"I felt his pulse, looked at his tongue, and 
told him he was working too hard — just as one 
of your modern doctors would do. It always 
pleases a prosperous citizen to be told that he 
is working too hard — and we aim to please. If 
I thought he would like a trip somewhere, I 
recommended a run over to Rome during the 
Coliseum season. They used to have some 
mighty good shows at the Coliseum. If he pre- 
ferred to take his vacation at home, then I 
recommended a trip for his wife. I told him not 
to eat so much and to take more exercise, and 
to cut out the worry, and then collected my fee 
of two drachmas, and went on to the next 
vie — I mean, the next patient. 

"But take that same prosperous citizen to- 



HIPPOCRATES 61 

day. How many specialists would he have to 
call in before he could consider his case proper- 
ly attended to! Seven diseases, seven special- 
ists, you say? Oh, more than that. First thing 
he 'd have to send for the primary diagnostician, 
if he wished to do it in thoroughly up-to-date 
style. W^ell, the primary diagnostician would 
come in to find out, first, what was the matter 
with him. He looks the patient all over and 
takes flash-light pictures of his interior, makes 
a card index of all the things the matter with 
him and then calls in his stenographer and dic- 
tates a circular letter to a collection of special- 
ists, asking them to drop around at their leisure 
and confirm his diagnoses. And do they pro- 
ceed then to treat the patient! Not for a min- 
ute. They are the secondary diagnosticians. 
Each has his specialty and wouldn't dream of 
encroaching on any other specialist's territory. 
The gout man looks only for gout — and he finds 
what he is looking for. The indigestion expert 
does the same — and it can't escape his eagle 
eye. It's the same all down the line. 

1 ' When the seven secondary diagnosticians 
have finished their job the patient is presented 
with seven neatly-inscribed charts, showing the 
general plan and location of his various 
troubles — and seven courteously worded com- 



62 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

munications beginning with precisely the same 
words: 'For professional services to date/ 

"Now it's time to call in the specialists who 
administer the treatment. Seven more of 'em. 
Why, nowadays the house of a rich man who 's 
got something the matter with his insides looks 
like the convention hall of the American Medi- 
cal Association during a well-attended session. 
And that's not all. You not only have to have a 
different doctor for each disease, but a whole 
lot of brand-new diseases we never heard of 
in my time have been invented. Back in the 
old days in Athens there were only about a 
dozen ailments a fellow could acquire. If he 
escaped these he never had to call in a doctor. 
But today, as any specialist will tell you, there 
are about fifty-seven varieties of throat trouble 
alone. You can have eighty-six different things 
the matter with your liver, while the various 
kinds of indigestion, plain and fancy, would fill 
a book. In our time, too, we did mighty little 
tinkering with the human frame with tools and 
things. We knew about the appendix, but we 
failed to perceive its commercial possibilities. 
We thought it had been put there for some wise 
purpose — but it didn't occur to us that it might 
be a financial one. The price of a modern ap- 
pendicitis operation would have supported one 



HIPPOCRATES 63 

of our old Greek physicians in luxury for three 
years. 

"It was the same with tonsils. We'd as soon 
have thought of cutting off a man's tongue as 
taking out his tonsils. Every young doctor had 
to take an oath — the Hippocratic oath, I called 
it — that he would give everybody the benefit of 
his services without regard to money. Nowa- 
days if doctors take the oath I presume a good 
many of them keep their fingers crossed. I agree 
that when a doctor is called out of his bed in 
the middle of the night, to treat an old fellow 
who is suffering from nothing except fatty de- 
generation of the pocketbook, it's quite a temp- 
tation to relieve him of a substantial share of 
that trouble. Some folk think they aren't get- 
ting full attention unless they are charged 
enough to make them feel it in the pocket nerve. 
Increased wages of workingmen are bound to 
enlarge the number of millionaire medicos. ' ' 

' i So, you think, Doctor, the practice of medi- 
cine has become somewhat commercialized since 
your day?" 

"Oh, no. Not at all. I did not wish to re- 
flect on my successors. That would not be pro- 
fessional. I'm simply sorry that back in 400 
B. C. we were not alive to our opportunities. 
Think of our allowing Croesus, the richest man 



64 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

that ever lived, to go around with his appendix 
intact! Why, I sat up with him all one night 
when he had acute inflammation of the imagin- 
ation and thought he saw pink Egyptian croco- 
diles crawling up the window-shades, and only 
charged him two dollars ! 

"No, understand me. I'm not finding fault 
with the twentieth century doctors. I'm only 
envious of their opportunities. Your modern 
doctor dashes around town in his automobile 
and calls on twenty patients a day. I had an 
old ox team, non-self -starting, that couldn't 
take the smallest hill on high and had a maxi- 
mum speed on the level of two miles an hour. 
While I was attending a patient at one end of 
Athens a patient at the other end had time to 
get well without my assistance. That was dis- 
couraging to any young fellow just as his prac- 
tice and professional beard were beginning to 
grow. And nowadays they tell me you have 
allopaths, and homeopaths and osteopaths — but 
you must remember that all paths lead to the 
grave. ' ' 

"Wiry is that last joke just like you, Doc- 
tor?" I interposed in self-defense. 

"I give it up. Why is it?" 

"Because it dates from at least 400 B. 0." 

And the look Hippocrates gave in return 



HIPPOCRATES 65 

made me thankful he wasn 't my family doctor. 
I knew he would rejoice to write me a prescrip- 
tion of ten grains of strychnine, three times a 
day, to be taken before meals. 



VIII 

METHUSELAH GIVES LONGEVITY SECKETS 

It's odd how often in interviewing the old- 
timers and ancient shades one's preconceived 
ideas get a jolt. In my mind's eye I had a 
vision of Methuselah, for instance, as an ante- 
diluvian figure with a Santa Claus beard and a 
general air of decrepitude. The door was 
opened in response to my ring by a smartly 
dressed, smooth-shaven individual, who certain- 
ly looked as if the burden, of age sat lightly 
upon his shoulders. 

"I should like to see Mr. Methuselah," I said. 
"That is, if he is able to see callers> today. If 
he's having his nap, or not feeling very spry 
this morning, I can come again." 

' ' Come again? I guess not. You see me 
right now. I was going over to the Olympus 
Club to play a round of golf, but I'll be glad to 
give you half an hour. Walk right in. What 
can I do for you?" 

' ' My city editor wanted an interview on how 
to attain long life, but I must have got hold of 
the wrong Mr. Methuselah. I want the one who 

66 



METHUSELAH 67 

lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years, the 
world's champion oldest inhabitant. Surely 
you're not — " 

"I'll say I am. I'm the only original, the 
guaranteed nine-times-centenarian and then 
some. I know what you expected to see: an 
old fossil with snowy whiskers and numerous 
wrinkles, walking with a couple of canes and 
dressed in a single garment like an old- 
fashioned nightshirt. You were prepared to 
have me give my reminiscences, to wheeze out, 
between painful breaths, that the old days were 
far better than anything we have now, to roast 
the younger generation, and wind up by at- 
tributing my longevity to abstaining from booze 
and the use of tobacco in any form. You were 
all ready to put down that I can read fine print 
without glasses and can remember events of 
nine hundred and fifty years ago as if they hap- 
pened only yesterday. Oh, I know you news- 
paper fellows and I 've read so many interviews 
with centenarians I could write one myself with 
my eyes shut. My advice to anybody who wants 
to live to be a hundred, to say nothing of nine 
hundred and sixty-nine, is, ' Don't.' And as for 
reminiscences, my motto is, ' Forget it.' I 
haven't any very happy recollections of my 
long-drawn-out stay on earth. Existence is 



68 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

pleasant, but it is possible to have entirely too 
much of a good thing. 

"Take our married life, for instance. At 
the start everybody said it was a regular love 
story. But even a love story that stretches 
out into a serial of over nine hundred chapters 
gets a trifle monotonous. YouVe never heard 
of Mrs. M. She wouldn't tell her age even to 
get her name into the Bible. I remember when 
they first started taking the census. The census 
taker came to our house and camped out three 
years. Couldn't get all the facts of our family 
any other way. And we had to board him all 
that time. Well, his wife's sister belonged to 
the Daughters of Eve Foreign Missionary So- 
ciety, the same one my wife did, and Mrs. M. 
said she just knew that if she gave her age, 
why, that mean old thing would know it within 
half an hour, and it would be all around town be- 
fore the day was over. And she just wouldn't 
give it. I gave him all the dope about the other 
members of the family, my great-great-great- 
etc. -grandchildren and the close relations on my 
wife's side who'd been living with us for three 
hundred and fifty years (close was no name for 
it), but I balked when it came to the question 
of Mrs. M.'s age. The fact was, she was only 
about four hundred and twenty-five, or there- 
abouts, at the time, but you know how women 



METHUSELAH 69 

are — so blamed sensitive about something that 
men are proud of — and so I told him to go and 
get the information from headquarters. 

"Well, it happened to be a bad combination 
that day. It was wash-day, and the cook had 
just left, after being with us for a hundred and 
eighty years, and quite a number of the chil- 
dren had the measles and the whooping cough 
and one thing another, and Mrs. M. happened 
to have a mop in her hand at the time, and — 
But here I am reminiscing away and I said I 
wouldn't. Let's get back to business. What did 
you want me to talk about?" 

"I'd like you to explain how you've kept so 
young-looking and feeling after all these 
years." 

"That's easy. I'm just following the new 
policy of you folks down below and carrying 
it out to its logical extreme. The modern idea 
is to regard age as merely a state of mind. 
Simply refuse to grow old and you'll find it's 
easy enough to stay young. Is your hair getting 
gray? Never say dye. Is your hair falling out? 
Get it bobbed. Don't try camouflaging your 
face, but keep )young inside. Joshua has the 
right dope: let's have some lifetime saving. 
Half a century ago a man was old at forty and 
a woman put on a cap and sat in the chimney 
corner when she turned thirty. A girl was an 



70 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

old maid at twenty-five. Today you think 
there's something wrong with a grandmother 
who can't jazz and nobody knows the mean- 
ing of ' declining years.' And nobody is too 
old to decline a cigarette or a dance. They 
used to say a man ought to retire at seventy. 
Now it's hard to get him to retire at midnight, 
if there's a good show left in town. Folks are 
just beginning to enjoy life at sixty. 

" All I've done is to follow you folk's example 
and refuse to be old at nine hundred and sixty- 
nine. If I can do it, everybody can. How does 
this jibe with my advice not to try to live to 
be a hundred, you may ask. That's perfectly 
consistent. The way to live long is not to bother 
about it, I wouldn't have been five hundred 
if I'd tried to keep up with the advice of all 
the insurance experts. I speak from experi- 
ence. Take the 'no breakfast' cranks, for in- 
stance. I went without breakfast for one hun- 
dred and twenty-five years and I didn't know 
what was the matter with me. Then I tried 
taking a couple of pounds of beefsteak and half 
a dozen baked potatoes before breakfast every 
morning, and I felt like a new man. Then, once 
at the beginning of a century — I forget which 
one — Mrs. M. got me to swear off on tobacco 
for a hundred years. We used to make our so- 
called good resolutions at the start of a century, 



METHUSELAH 71 

not of a year, the way you do. The first hun- 
dred years may be the hardest, she said, but 
1 see how much better you '11 feel. f Well, I stuck 
it out about sixty years, and then the whole 
family came around and besought me on bended 
knee to go back to hitting the pipe. They said 
life in our once happy home was getting to re- 
semble a bear garden or a peace conference or 
a free-for-all prize fight. Better to smoke than 
to fume. And so I got out the old pipe and 
smoked up for another six hundred years. 

"I wish I'd kept a card index of all the health 
fads I've seen come and go. Once the vege- 
tarians had their inning. Somebody said the 
secret of health was to eat nothing but onions. 
It would have been pretty hard to keep the 
secret. Then we were told to eat only fruit. 
And once all the cranks decided on an ex- 
clusive diet of nuts — sort of cannibalistic when 
you come to think of it. One winter they said 
we'd all be healthier with the minimum of un- 
derwear — the short and simple flannels of the 
poor. Another rule for living long was to 
almost freeze yourself every morning taking a 
cold bath — I remember one winter I qualified 
for a zero medal. I ate baled hay and fried saw- 
dust and all sorts of breakfast foods for two or 
three centuries, under the impression that they 
were the elixirs of eternal youth, and then one 



72 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

day I found I was getting so weak and wobbly 
on my pins I cut 'em all out and went back to a 
good dose of real food, three times a day, to be 
taken at mealtime. I quit the fads and fancies, 
ate everything that came my way and let 'em 
fight it out among themselves. And I broke 
the world's record for dodging the undertaker. 
"But, as I remarked before, I can't say I'd 
advise anybody to try to be even a single cen- 
tenarian, to say nothing of scoring nine. Think 
of paying for nine hundred birthday presents 
your wife gave you, not to mention several thou- 
sand contributed by the children and grand- 
children and other descendants. Why, one 
birthday I got ninety-three pairs of slippers, 
most of 'em, of course, a size too small — must 
have thought I was a centipede. Then there's 
a good deal of competition among centenarians, 
and that leads to jealousy and hard feelings. 
For instance, I'd always predicted the weather 
by my rheumatiz (although I could never tell 
when there was going to be a storm at home). 
I got quite a reputation by it. And then an up- 
start centenarian over at Ararat, a young fel- 
low only about three hundred years old, claimed 
it always rained when his corns hurt him — or 
the other way round — and took away about half 
my visitors. He boasted that he had a set of 
infallible corns, and every morning he r d get 



METHUSELAH 73 

out a bulletin such as 'Fair and warmer, ' or 
' Cold weather with snow. ' A regular fakir, he 
was. Honest folk just considered him one of 
those excess prophets. But he seemed to guess 
right about fifty per cent of the time, and when 
he was wrong people gave him credit for his 
good intentions. His whole stock in trade was 
his corns. Any good chiropodist could have re- 
duced him to bankruptcy in five minutes. But 
he put up a bluff and got away with it and made 
folks think he was the real Oldest Inhabitant. ' ' 

"One more question, Mr. Methuselah: how 
do you account for the fact that folks lived so 
much longer in your time than they do nowa- 
days?" 

"Well, there were no automobiles and tele- 
phones and germ theories, and revenue officers 
and apartment houses and phonographs 
and 1 piano-players and rolled hose and alarm 
clocks and table d'hote dinners, for one thing, 
and for another, we didn't try to compress five 
hundred years of living into a fifty years' ex- 
istence. We didn't cover any more distance 
over the highway of life than you moderns do, 
but we took more time to do it in. We walked 
instead of ran, and picked flowers along the 
wayside and paused now and then to admire the 
scenery. And rich or poor, young or old, we 
got out of life exactly what you do — a living. 



74 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

And now I must ask you to excuse me. I 
promised to play nine holes with Noah before 
luncheon. How would you like to carry my golf 
sticks?" 

I respectfully declined, pleading a previous 
engagement. I have played many roles in my 
time, as a reporter, but I felt I must draw the 
line at caddying for Methuselah. 



IX 



JESSE JAMES TALKS ON TIPPING 

On receiving the cit}^ editor's assignment to 
interview the shade of Jesse James on the tip- 
ping custom, I carefully removed my watch, 
purse and scarfpin and left them in my desk, 
for even my brief experience with dwellers in 
the astral region had taught me that they 
haven 't greatly changed their habits and modes 
of living since their departure from earthly 
scenes, and I couldn't afford to run any risk. 
But I soon found that I needn't have taken the 
precaution, for in almost his first words the 
famous bandit and all-round bad man showed 
me that he had thoroughly reformed. 

"Want me to talk about tipping, eh?" he 
growled. "Well, I throw up my hands. I'm 
through with the bandit business. I'm a has- 
been, a second-rater, and I don't mind admittm' 
it, I suppose you know that we shades go back 
to earth now and then to see how things are 
comin' along, take a hand in 'em, too, if we 
feel like it. Sometimes we play one-night 
stands for the mejums. Captain Kidd had a 

75 



76 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

job all last season at a kind of continuous per- 
formance seance in Boston. Took all sorts of 
parts, from Julius Caesar to Andrew Jackson. 
One night he was materializing as John Bunyun, 
and he couldn't find his chewin' tobacco or 
something, and he kind o' forgot himself and 
he used the particular brand of language that 
Bunyun didn't and — well, that ended the Massa- 
chusetts engagement. We don't all go in for 
performing. Personally, I prefer just to go 
around the old places and mix in with the 
crowds and compare old times to these, but I'm 
not going back again for a while. My last trip 
was a little too much for me. I got a shock and 
I guess I need a good long rest. 

"I'd heard considerable about this tipping 
business, pro and con, but I thought it just 
meant slippin' the colored waiter a nickel if he 
happened to be extra spry and accommodatin'. 
That's the way it used to be out in Missouri 
back in seventy-nine. But tipping today! 
Yours truly and his gang was called bandits, 
and train robbers, and highwaymen, and I don't 
know what all, when we was carryin'' on our 
profitable little business of forty years ago, but 
we had nothing on the members of the Amalga- 
mated Association of Tip Extractors of 1922. 
We were pikers, that's all, plain, everyday 
pikers. We had no organization, no system, no 



JESSE JAMES 77 

nothing. It was just about the difference be- 
tween running a peanut stand and a billion- 
dollar trust. I suppose if we were operatic 
today with our old gang we'd have a cash reg- 
ister and an addin' machine and a private tele- 
phone exchange and a card index of past and 
prospective customers and a publicity depart- 
ment, to see that the papers got our names and 
pictures straight. But, shucks ! Even then we 
couldn't compete with the great national hold- 
up game that's going on all the time. On that 
last trip down below I was never so discouraged 
and humiliated in my life. I sat in a hotel 
restaurant and watched a head waiter at work. 
From the professional standpoint it was beau- 
tiful. Nothing could have been more artistic. 
But it made me feel blue, made me realize how 
I had neglected my opportunities. There he 
stood, no mask on his face, no gun in his hand, 
dressed in a swallowtail and biled shirt, takin' 
toll so fast he hadn't time to count it. Every- 
body gave up, without a murmur. And the next 
day, too, he was there at the same old stand, as 
if there wasn't any such thing as a sheriff 
within fifty miles. No look-out men on guard, 
no disguise, no frisking the victims for con- 
cealed weapons. The folks just handin' out the 
coin as meek as lambs. It w^as a revelation to 
me. In the old days we never stayed two days 



78 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

in the same place, nor two hours neither, believe 
me. But somebody said that head waiter had 
been on that same job for fifteen years. Fifteen 
years ! I'd have owned the state of Missouri if 
they'd let me alone that long. 

"It made me positively sick to see how the 
hold-up boys are getting away with it so easy 
these days, and a friend recommended an ocean 
trip. ' Take a run over to Europe and back, ' he 
says. ' You Ve never been to sea and it'll do you 
good.' The day I boarded the boat I asked a 
stranger who had the next cell to put me wise to 
this tipping business, because I wanted to do 
the right thing. 'Five dollars to your state- 
room steward,' he said, 'and five to the saloon 
steward.' 'I don't drink any more,' I said. 
'Saloon means dining room.' 'Oh, all right,' I 
said. 'And two-fifty to the deck steward and 
the same to the library steward. The smoke 
room steward will expect a couple of dollars and 
the boy who blacks your boots about one-fifty. 
Bath steward, two dollars. Card room steward, 
one dollar. And of course you'll tip the barber 
and anyone else who does you a service.' 

"Going into the washroom, the first sign I 
saw read : ' Please tip the basin. ' And I walked 
right out and went to bed for two days. The 
waiter brought in all my meals — a dollar tip a 
meal. When I had recovered enough to sit on 



JESSE JAMES 79 

deck in one of them overgrown Morris chairs, 
I couldn't get that tipping idea out of my head. 
A friend introduced me to a fat fellow in uni- 
form. I didn't catch the name, but automatic- 
ally handed him fifty cents and then learned 
that he was the captain. The day we arrived at 
Liverpool the passengers were all drawn up on 
deck and so were the pirates — excuse me, I 
mean the crew. Then came the ringing words 
of command: 'Present alms!' And we handed 
over all the coin we had left. I only wished 
Captin Kidd had been there. He'd have learned 
something new about his old game. 

"I confess I had thought some of going back 
into the hold-up business, just to keep my hand 
in, but never again now. Too much competition, 
and I'm too old to learn new ways. Good-bye, 
young man, and if you want to say a good word 
for an old man who never did you any harm, 
put this in your article : 

" 'Jesse James may have had his faults, but 
he was different from some of the folks who are 
now carrying on the business — he never robbed 
the same man twice.' " 



SHAKESPEAEE MENTIONS MOVIES 

The thought of interviewing a gentlemanly 
genius like William Shakespeare after stacking 
up against such remote and formidable char- 
acters as Bluebeard, Brigham Young and Jesse 
James was most refreshing, though it took some 
nerve after all to tackle the world's champion 
dramatic poet. I had feared he might be slight- 
ly disinclined to talk, not being familiar with 
the ways of modern journalism, but I was 
speedily set at ease on that point. 

"Not talk for publication?" said the shade 
of Shakespeare, as he resumed his seat in his 
Morris chair upon my entrance, and tried to 
look like his pictures. "Not talk for publica- 
tion ? Did you ever know an actor, playwright 
or a, poet who wouldn't? And I've been all 
three, and a theatrical manager thrown in. It's 
quite a while since I trod the boards, or walked 
the ties, but I've managed to keep fairly in 
touch with the times from frequent trips down 
below to oblige my mediumistic friends. 
There's a great boom on just now. I could get 

80 



SHAKESPEARE 81 

an engagement every night in the week, and a 
pair of matinees,, if I cared to perform. But 
there's nothing in it. If they'd let me perform 
in my own plays it would be different But 
there's not much demand for them, it seems. 
All they'll let me do is play the tambourine in 
a dark cabinet and scribble on slates and turn 
tables — just vaudeville I call it. And I see 
they're beginning to censor my plays and cut 
out all references to booze on account of the 
new prohibition law. They made one of my 
actors quit giving the line: 'I can call spirits 
from the vasty deep. ' Said it gave a wrong im- 
pression and tantalized men in the audience 
who thought the speaker was referring to his 
private stock down cellar. Well, all the world's 
a stage — and the last time I was down I noticed 
most of the girls seemed to believe in making 
up for their parts. Talk about fresh paint! 

"But you wished me to compare modern 
theatrical conditions with those of my day. 
This is an age of specialists, but as I have said, 
when I was on earth, * One man in his time plays 
many parts. 9 I used to write a play, hire a 
company, rehearse it, take the leading part my- 
self, sell tickets at the door, usher, beat the 
bass drum, fill the lamps and sweep out. I've 
died on the stage and two minutes later gone 
up into the top gallery to bounce a couple of 



82 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

rowdies. But we were all trained to versatility 
in those days. No women were allowed to act, 
you know. You can't imagine how nice and 
peaceful it was in our companies. Nobody ever 
threatened to quit because the type of his name 
on the posters was an eighth of an inch smaller 
than somebody else's. Nobody ever cried all 
over the stage because somebody made dispar- 
aging remarks about his complexion or said his 
teeth showed he was ten years older than he 
claimed. But there were disadvantages, too, 
from the absence of the girls. Men had to take 
feminine parts. And you take an Ophelia, for 
instance, who chews tobacco and is drunk half 
the time, and it's hard to invest the part with 
the genuine pathos it demands. I remember one 
time I hired a tall, gawky youth to play the part 
of Desdemona. He was all right the first week, 
but after that his voice suddenly began chang- 
ing, and it sounded like a phonograph record 
that's had a fall and got twisted. A Desdemona 
with a deep bass voice that switches to a shrill 
soprano without warning and then back again 
to the husky rumbling in the space of thirty 
seconds is bound to incur adverse criticism. 

4 i I once had a Lady Macbeth, too, who had a 
habit of smoking his pipe behind the scenes 
while waiting for his cue. And one time, when 
he got the call, he absent-mindedly forgot to 



SHAKESPEARE 83 

put his pipe away. It is entirely contrary to 
tradition for Lady Macbeth to smoke a pipe in 
the sleep-walking scene, and I had to dispense 
with his services the next Saturday night. And 
barring absent-mindedness, he was the best 
Lady Macbeth I ever had, too. I suppose our 
performances were pretty bum. But there were 
no daily newspaper dramatic critics then, and 
we didn't know how rotten we were. Ignorance 
was bliss, both for us and for our audiences. 
We were handicapped, also, by lack of scenery. 
Our property man had a sinecure. The only 
'set* we had consisted of a couple of kitchen 
chairs and a tin pan — the latter for the thunder. 
We used the chairs for thrones or mossy banks 
or anything else that happened to be needed. 
The audience had to picture the rest of the 
scenery. There was no curtain and the or- 
chestra consisted of one performer. That in- 
sured harmony in the orchestra. Our equip- 
ment was ahead of your modern companies in 
only one respect: that of costumes. We always 
had plenty of costumes, such as they were. The 
last time I was down below I attended a musical 
comedy performance, and I was pained to ob- 
serve how badly handicapped the management 
was in the matter of costumes. There weren't 
half enough to go around. And the thermome- 
ter was below zero, too. As I said, we always 



84 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

had enough costumes, because we used the same 
ones in every performance. Everybody, from 
Romeo to old King Lear, wore an antiquated red 
bathrobe and slippers. At least we managed 
to keep warm. Unlike your modern managers, 
we never had to hang* out the ' Standing room 
only' sign. Nobody would have gone if he 
couldn't get a seat. Rut I've been told that 
nowadays theater audiences will stand for any- 
thing. 1 ean believe it after seeing some of your 
plays. As I have remarked in one of my own 
compositions, 'Sweet are the uses of advertise- 
ments.' 

"But to return to our discussion. The pres- 
ent generation has witnessed a wonderful ad- 
dition to the dramatic art. I refer to the mov- 
ing pictures. You thought I wouldn't be for 
them? I am. I think they're wonderful. I 
only wish we'd had them in my day. I'd have 
been able to retire about ten years sooner. 
You see, the highest salary T ever got was about 
twenty-five a week, and out of that I had to pay 
my board and traveling expenses — everything 
but hauling trunks to the hotel. Then I went 
into the producing game and did a little better. 
But even then, some Saturday nights, the ghost 
didn't walk — except the one in Hamlet. I un- 
derstand the average salary of a modern mov- 
ing picture actor is a million dollars a year and 



SHAKESPEARE 85 

accident insurance. Newcomers learning the 
business draw down nominal pay of five thou* a 
week. Small my lord-the carriage-waits parts 
get only two thousand a week, and so on down 
to the supes and scene-shifters and deckhands 
struggling to support their families on a hun- 
dred or so a day. 1 figure thai, I he salary of a 
first-class movie actor for one year would have 
supported in luxury all the actors of my day 
for their entire lifetimes. And they'd have 
saved money. In my day an actor was about 
the next thing to a professional pauper. Like 
the dentist, he eked out a hand-to-mouth exist- 
ence, hut. unlike the dentist he didn't often have 
the opportimity of filling an aching void — his 
stomach. Life was just one bill collector after 
another. When anybody was needed to play 

the role o\' the half-starved apothecary in 
Borneo and Juliet there was no trouble finding a 
fellow who looked the part. There was always 
a rush of volunteers for the banquet scenes — if 
real food was provided. But I don't begrudge 
your modern actors their prosperity. I only 
wish the stuff had been handed around a little 
earlier. That's all." 

"Arc you so enthusiastic over the movies, 
Mr. Shakespeare, that you like to have them 
produce your own plays? Or is that sacrilege V 9 

"I'd like to have my plays in the movies if 



86 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

they'd produce them properly. But what makes 
me sore is to have them leave out all the pep. 
When a play is transferred from the book or 
the stage to the movie, certain necessary 
changes should be made. The first requirement 
of the picture play is action. There's no place 
for talk. Now, if they're going to have my 
plays in the movies, I wish they'd popularize 
'em. For instance, in my day there wasn't an 
actor who knew how to throw a pie. Nobody 
could fire a pistol without ever taking aim — the 
way the movie actors do it. I hate to see my 
plays fail just for lack of a few pies and pistols, 
artistically handled. When one of my produc- 
tions is put on the screen they engage some 
long-faced tragedian who's immersed in great 
gobs of gloom all the time — some impressive in- 
dividual with a St. Bernard voice that's entirely 
wasted in the movies. What I say is : get some- 
body like Charlie Chaplin for Romeo and Mary 
Pickford for Juliet, Mary Carr or Nazimova 
for the nurse, and put some punch into it. 
Take Hamlet: imagine Ben Turpin and his fat 
side kick as grave diggers! What a rattling 
good duel Doug Fairbanks and Bill Hart could 
pull off with pistols at forty paces! If they're 
going to have my plays in the movies, then have 
movie actors give them; that's all I say. And 



SHAKESPEARE 87 

make them real movie plays while they r re about 
it" 

"One question more, Mr. Shakespeare. You 
have described most graphically the seven ages 
of man. In view of femininity's wonderful 
progress, could you not give me a parting 
message on the ages of woman?" 

The great dramatist pondered deeply for a 
moment and then replied in an impressive tone. 
"Woman has onty two ages nowadays," he said 
with a sigh. "Her real one and the one she 
uses to vote." 

His air of finality showed me that our inter- 
view was at an end. 



XI 

ADAM CONDEMNS FEMININE FASHIONS 

I had been assigned to interview Eve on the 
feminine fashions of 1922, but the maid said she 
was out, and so I had to fall back on old Adam 
instead. I approached the father of the race 
not without diffidence, feeling so painfully 
young and fearing he would not care to talk 
for publication, but his opening remarks set me 
entirely at ease. 

' l Not care to be quoted ! ' ' he exclaimed. ' ' I 'm 
mighty glad of the opportunity. I don't have 
one so often, now that Eve stays home so much. 
You see, she calls only on people of the first 
families, and they're not very numerous around 
here. The neighbors say she gives herself airs, 
and so they don 't call on her. It 's been a last- 
ing source of grief that she's ineligible to join 
the Daughters of anything. She arrived too 
early on the scene. It used to be awfully galling 
to her to hear the women all talking about their 
family trees and boasting of their ancestors, 
and swapping lies about what their great-great- 
grandfathers said to George Washington at the 

88 



ADAM 89 

battle of San Juan Hill, or whatever it was, and 
giving an expurgated edition of what George 
Washington said to Lord Cornwallis, as handed 
down to posterity in the family records. Eve 
used to sit in a corner and weep while the 
Daughters of the Mexican Revolutions or the 
Granddaughters of Russian Independence (to 
be eligible for the latter you must have an an- 
cestor who shot at least one grand duke, five as- 
sassinations making you an ace; and if your 
relative happened to pot a Czar your social 
position is assured forever) were spinning 
their yarns and trying to make each other 
jealous. But now she's organized a new so- 
ciety, the Mothers of Humanity, and she 's presi- 
dent, secretary, treasurer and chairman of the 
committee on membership. She's away this 
afternoon calling on Mrs. Methuselah and 
they're trying to get up some scheme that will 
induce all the women they want to blackball to 
apply for membership. 

"Yes, poor Eve has had a pretty hard time 
right from the start, and I don't believe her 
descendants have appreciated what she did for 
them. I'll say this for her: she's been as true 
as steel, even if she hasn't always kept her 
temper so well. It's a fact that after that first 
little unpleasantness she always kept a broom- 
stick handy for any peddler who might come 



90 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

along trying to sell 'nice eating apples/ but 
consider the provocation! There we were, nice- 
ly settled in the garden, no work, nothing to do 
but step out in the yard and help ourselves to 
all the fruit and vegetables in sight. All the 
trees and vines were of the self -cultivating va- 
riety. We'd never even heard of the high cost 
of living. No family to support. No neighbors 
to scrap with. No money, and no pockets to put 
it in if we had had, but, glorious thought! No 
bills to pay. We had our little disagreements, 
of course. The first day she arrived, Eve said 
I'd been doing the dishes the wrong way, let- 
ting 'em all go until the end of the month and 
then turning the hose on 'em out in the front 
yard; she insisted on washing 'em after every 
meal. But, as I said, who was there to know 
the difference? She had to learn the names of 
all llie animals, and she was especially glad to 
hear about the bear, so that she could tell me 
what I was as-cross-as when I got the grip that 
first winter. 

" Yes, life is real and wife is earnest, but, as I 
said, ours was very happy. The first quarrel? 
I don't know that I remember just what it was 
about. I recall a dispute over Eve's new bath- 
ing suit, which was intensified by my innocent 
remark that it was an exceedingly small thing 
to quarrel about, but I think our initial serious 



ADAM 91 

disagreement occurred when I respectfully de- 
clined to go into hysterics over Cain's first 
tooth. 

"And this reminds me: our first social event 
in Eden was little Cain's inaugural bawl. I'm 
sure you'll pardon me Tor getting that off my 
mind at this stage of the interview, [f I tried 
that joke on Eve once 1 tried it. fifty times, and 
every time 1 was mel by the same blank stare. 
I've been waiting seven thousand years to tell 
it to somebody who would appreciate it. Thank 
you for smiling. 1 was the originator of the 

saying that women have no sense of humor. 
Man was made to mourn, and he never realizes 
it. so keenly as when he hears a woman try to 
tell a funny story. I could talk to you all day 
about Eve, the only girl 1 ever loved — because 

there wasn't, any other. It didn't, take us long 
\o get out oi' the Garden that time — principally 

because Eve didn't have to wait to dross. To- 
day if would be a different story. If clothes 
had been in vogue in the year one I suppose 1 
might have waited two hours down in the front 
hall while Mve was getting ready and packing 
the trunks — and then probably I'd have had to 
go back two or three times for something she 
thought she'd forgotten after we got outside. 
Well, what r started to say was that little Eve 
bore lip bravely tinder her misfortunes. She put 



92 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

up a splendid bluff. I '11 say that for her. Why, 
do you know, instead of sitting down and be- 
wailing her hard fate after being put out of the 
Garden, she actually gave a coming out party! 
I certainly admired her nerve, one day, when I 
overheard her telling the new neighbors that 
Eden was all very well for young couples just 
starting housekeeping, but the neighborhood 
was getting so crowded and it was so near the 
zoo that we just really had to move. And then 
she remarked that she had never been able to 
get me to take enough exercise anyway and she 
thought gardening would now be just fine for 
me. It takes a woman to carry a thing off like 
that. Women are the world's champion bluffers 
and yet we men think we know how to play 
poker. Why — " 

"Excuse me, Mr. Adam, but I was asked to 
get an interview on feminine fashions of 1922, 
and whether you think thejy have changed for 
the better/' 

"Oh, beg pardon, I'm sure. But when I get 
talking about Eve my tongue runs away with 
me. I suppose all married men are that way. 
It's so delightful sometimes to have the chance 
of talking without feeling that you're inter- 
rupting anybody. Feminine fashions, eh f Well, 
I've seen some changes in the last seven 
thousand years. I thought nothing could shock 



ADAM 93 

me any more, but I've had a few stiff jolts the 
last few months. I guess I'm not as strong as 
I used to be. Back in the old days, in the 
garden, fashions weren't so much. That was 
before the trouble, but after we moved, plain, 
simple fig-leaves became passee, hopelessly old- 
fashioned and out-of-date. I read a book the 
other clay entitled 'How to Dress on Nothing 
a Year. ' That described our case exactly, in the 
early, happy, carefree days. There wasn't a 
dressmaker in the world. If anybody had 
mentioned the word 'modiste' I'd have thought 
it was some new kind of animal I'd overlooked 
in taking the census. I wouldn't have known 
what he meant. Ever have a sewing woman 
come to your house and stay a week at a time 
and always sit down with the family at table 
and be a damper on the conversation? Well, 
that's one trouble we never experienced. Eve 
never came home from a walk in the woods 
and remarked carelessly that she'd just seen 
a hat downtown that could be bought for a 
song, and then it turned out that the song was 
' Old Hundred. ' Not for a minute. Nobody gave 
a hang in those days what others might be 
wearing as the latest style. We knew they 
might wear more, but they couldn't well wear 
any less. When anybody wanted a Spring or 
Fall outfit, all he had to do was to go out in 



94 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

the woods and pick a new suit off a tree. If you 
were getting a bit shabby and resolved to dress 
better in the future, you just turned over a new 
leaf. 

1 i Then came moving da]y, and what a change ! 
First crack out of the box the girls all began 
clamoring for clothes, real clothes. I remember 
one hot day — the thermometer would have been 
registering about ninety- five, if there had been 
one — the girls all set up a howl for furs — furs, 
mind you, with the sun hot enough to boil a 
cold storage egg. I tried to reason with 'em. 
'You don't mean furs,' I said, 'you mean bath- 
ing suits or peek-aboo waists or mosquito net- 
ting. This is summer, the hottest weather 
since the year one. The heat has affected your 
brains. Go take a swim in the Euphrates and 
cool off.' But they insisted that they knew 
what the!y were talking about, and so there was 
nothing for it but I must shoulder my old club 
and go off and kill a bear and a couple of foxes 
and a mink and fit 'em all out with a set of furs 
to wear while most folks were busy trying to 
dodge sunstrokes. That was the start, I believe, 
of this modern movement of the girls, wrap- 
ping themselves up in 'summer furs' just as 
soon as the weather gets hot enough. That next 
winter Eve and the girls started going around 
in the snow and ice in low shoes and short, 



ADAM 95 

open-work stockings and wish-bone waists and 
pneumonia sleeves, and defying the doctors. 
And that's the worst of it, that's what makes 
me mad. The girls do defy every last rule of 
Shealth when it comes to dress and get away 
with it. The strongest man that ever lived 
couldn't do it without a call from the under- 
taker, but the girls seem to thrive on their 
foolishness. 

"The fashions of 1922! Well, looking at 
them pro and con, without blinders or smoked 
glasses or anything at all, I may say that they 
have nothing on the fashions of the year one. 
And the fashions of the year one (I am merely 
stating the naked truth) had nothing on any- 
body. One word more, and I trust you are 
strong enough to stand it: It's all right for 
the women to be eager rivals, but they ought 
to draw the line at trying to outstrip each 
other. ' ' 

The next thing I knew I was in the ambulance 
headed for the Olympus Homeopathic Hospital. 
Old Adam had done his worst. 



XII 



CAPTAIN KIDD ON TAG DAYS 

"Yes, I have observed that your country is 
now experiencing one of those unprecedented 
waves of crime for which it is justly cele- 
brated, " remarked Captain Kidd as he un- 
sheathed a huge bowie knife and proceeded to 
cut off a man's dose of particularly black eat- 
ing tobacco. "For a nation that's been so busy 
makin' the world safe for democracy !you don't 
seem to be doing much to make it unsafe for the 
gunmen and stick-up artists. A few months 
ago everybody was talkin' about the * uplift.' 
And now they're trying to dodge the hold-ups. 
I was down below the other night. Had a date 
at a Philadelphia seance. And the moment I 
appeared the whole audience started bom- 
barding me with questions about the location 
of my buried treasure. I didn't tell 'em, of 
course, but I did give 'em some good advice 
for the present emergency. I told 'em that any 
man who carried more than carfare and lunch 
money in his pockets these days, and nights, 
was a fool. And I also suggested that anybody 

96 



CAPTAIN KIDD 97 

who buried his treasure in a sand bank instead 
of a savings bank or a safe deposit vault was 
entitled to admission to the nearest home for 
the feeble-minded without an entrance examin- 
ation. 

"I went out for a walk down Chestnut Street 
and in going four blocks had my pocket picked 
three times. The fellow who was supposed to 
be looking after that other block must have 
been off his beat. I got scared and wanted to 
hustle back up here, but to oblige the medium 
I stayed over until the next day. I took another 
walk, down Market street this time, and found 
it was a tag day. There were female hold-up 
artists at every corner. I turned over what 
the pick-pockets had missed the night before 
and made my escape. Terra firma is no place 
these days for a reformed pirate. It reminds 
him too painfully of the many good bets he 
overlooked. 

"Sometimes, especially after I've been read- 
in' of the activities of your cabaret waiters, 
bootleggers and Pullman porters, I can't help 
thinkin' that history has been too hard on us 
plain, unornamental pirates. We had to pick 
up a livin' best we could. We didn't have our 
tools and equipment provided for us. We had 
to furnish our own cutlasses and pistols, while 
your modern waiters and porters have their 



98 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

trays and whisk-brooms anyhow supplied free 
of charge. There wasn't an unwritten law, 
either, that anybody who didn 't cough up freely 
was a piker, and we had the greatest difficulty 
sometimes in getting a victim to produce. Folks 
found all sorts of mean little schemes for hid- 
ing away their valuables. That's why we had 
to invent the ingenious device known as i walk- 
ing the plank' to make 'em give till it hurt. But 
nowadays it's amazing to me to see the way the 
people hand over without even a pistol clapped 
at their heads. They're meek as lambs. The 
pirate business would have been a lot less wear- 
ing on the nerves if the public had co-operated 
then the way it does now. 

"Holding up a shipload of passengers used 
to be a complicated, annoying business. First, 
we'd run up the black flag with the skull and 
crossbones on it. Then we'd fire a round shot 
across the vessel's bows to bring her to. We'd 
paint our faces sometimes to make ourselves 
look as horrible as possible, and taking a pistol 
in each hand and a cutlass in our teeth, board 
the ship and line up the passengers and crew 
in a row. By the time we'd gone through their 
pockets and searched the cabin and lugged out 
the strong box we'd put in an eight-hour day, 
straight time. Hard, exhausting work, and all 
because people hadn't been properly trained 



CAPTAIN KIDD 99 

in those days to hand over quickljy and grace- 
fully so that we could get on to the next job. 

"HI were flying the Jolly Eoger today on 
my old pirate ship, with my crew of hard-boiled 
sinners around me, possibly we'd find merch- 
ant and passenger ships pestering us to come 
and take their money away from them. I'd 
be taking a quiet snooze in my cabin, maybe, 
when the bosn's mate would wake me up and 
say: 'Cap'n, a vessel on the starboard bow 
has just signalled for us to stand by and it 
will send over a boatload of treasure. ' And 
we'd have to get a cash register and a card 
index of customers and a press agent, to see 
that the papers got our names and pictures 
straight, as Jesse James suggests, and an ad 
writer to put a piece in saying: 'Why go else- 
where to be robbed! Come to old reliable Cap- 
tain Kidd & Co., Inc., and be immediately 
relieved. * But at that I don't suppose with my 
old-fashioned ideas I'd be able to compete with 
your up-to-date hold-up games. 

"I guess the best plan, if I were ever able 
to resume business, would be to start a 'drive' 
or hold a tag day. From the way the public 
gives up, I don't know but a drive for a $100,- 
000 fund to establish a home for worn-out 
pirates would bring in a lot of coin. First thing 
I'd get up a dinner for my executive committee 
of one hundred. You can't start anything 



100 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

without a lot of eating these days. Then we'd 
have a daily luncheon to receive reports from 
the captains of the various teams, winding up 
with a mass meeting where we'd take up a col- 
lection and announce the result of the house-to- 
house canvass. Still, a general tag day might 
bring in more money. I'd have pretty girls at 
all the street corners to pin a miniature arti- 
ficial lemon on every contributor to the Captain 
Kidd Refuge for Reformed Robbers. What 
do you think ?" 

"There are many excellent causes, Captain, 
that have adopted these devices to raise money 
and I hope you don't intend to reflect upon 
them. ' ' 

"Oh, not at all, not at all. But don't you 
think yourself that the idea has been worked a 
little hard? It's all right for the public to give 
to the things it knows about, but I was thinking 
it was becoming such an easy mark I might as 
well have my share. What I object to is being 
set down in history as the world's champion 
pirate and all around bad man, when the fact is 
I was naturally the most peaceable individual 
you ever met. The trouble is, I was born about 
a hundred years too soon. If I were in busi- 
ness today I wouldn't be a pirate; I'd be a 
head waiter in a New York hotel, with a foreign 
accent but able to understand all languages. 



CAPTAIN KIDD 101 

Money talks. Probably I'd have served an 
apprenticeship at the place where they check 
your hat and coat. 

"If I wasn't a head waiter I'd be a steward 
on an ocean ship. Perhaps I'd feel more at 
home on the sea anyway. I was talking to my 
old friend, Jesse James, the other day and he 
said the difference between him and the modern 
professional tip extractor was that he never 
robbed the same man twice. But I suppose his 
successors believe that anybody who is worth 
doing at all is worth doing well. One of these 
days the American people will probably adopt 
a new Declaration of Independence against 
foreign waiters and resolve to give the enemy 
no quarter — and no half dollar either. They'll 
change the old naval hero's slogan to ' Don't 
give up the tip.' 'Millions for good meals, but 
not one cent for tribute.' 'All things come to 
him who waits. ' Well, I 'm sorry for the waiter 
if he ever gets all that's coming to him. Ta, 
ta! young man." 

And as he hobbled off to splice the main 
brace I could hear the old fellow muttering to 
himself : ' ' And they used to call me a pirate ! ' ' 



XIII 

ALFRED THE GREAT TRIES TO FIND PROSPEROUS KING 

"You want me to talk about modern mon- 
arohs!" Alfred the Great responded with a 
trace of irritation. "Why don't you ask me 
to talk about the snakes in Ireland or the best 
method of preserving hen 's teeth? Why not in- 
terview me on the habits of the dodo? How 
about a little chat concerning that common do- 
mestic animal, the long-toed diplodocus, or that 
popular indoor pet, the megatherium? Let's 
discuss that numerous class of estimable citi- 
zens, the mound builders. Let's — " 

"I beg pardon, your Majesty," I hastened to 
interrupt, "but I had no intention of offending. 
I know kings are very few and far between 
these days, but I thought [your views on the two 
or three who have managed to survive would 
be most interesting to the present generation. 
You yourself were such a mighty monarch, so 
generally respected for your honesty and ability 
and bravery and regal appearance, that I am 
sure — " 

"There, there, say no more," he replied 
102 



ALFRED THE GREAT 103 

with condescending affability, "I am just a 
trifle sensitive, I suppose, on the subject. When 
I see so many of my brothers sacrificed to the 
onrushing tide of democracy, naturally it makes 
me a bit sad. 

"It's just a month," continued King Alfred, 
as he lighted his long meerschaum and settled 
down comfortably in his armchair, which was 
fashioned like a throne, "it's just a month 
since I took mty first trip down below to see how 
the earth had been getting along in my absence 
of a thousand years plus. And I am frank to 
confess I found some changes. I went down 
under the auspices of a spiritualist who wanted 
me to tell a woman's club how to make griddle 
cakes. I suppose you've read about the time 
I let the cakes burn in the farmer's cottage and 
the housewife bawled me out when she came 
back. It's in every school reader. Well, the 
next day I called in my chief cook and had him 
show me how to make griddle cakes that would 
melt in your mouth. There's no trick at all to 
it, really. The only thing is you must keep 
your mind on it. That time in the cottage I 
got to thinking about a new way to fight the 
Danes, and the first thing I knew there was a 
smell like burning rubber and the old dame 
rushed in and called me down. I 'd have ordered 
her off to instant execution, but just then our 



104 INTEEVIEWS WITH SHADES 

side needed all the votes it could get, and I 
didn't know whether her husband would thank 
me or be annoyed. 

i i Sometimes you can make a hit with a hus- 
band by giving his wife a ten-year sentence in 
jail, and again it makes him peevish — particul- 
arly if he has to do his own housework. So 1 
spared her that time. Where was I? Oh, yes, 
as I was saying, I went down to tell the club 
how to make griddle cakes. After I'd filled that 
date I decided to take a little trip around the 
capitols of Europe and call on my cousins, the 
kings and queens. You know every king is sup- 
posed to be at least a cousin of every other 
one — that's why we have such strained rela- 
tions so often in royal circles. Well, I decided 
first to project my astral body up to Moscow, 
the ancient capitol of Russia. I'd never trav- 
eled that far during my previous existence on 
earth, because I couldn't spare the time — our 
wars were a continuous performance. Arrived 
at the palace, I walked right up to the front 
door and was going in when a big fellow, rough- 
ly clad, his countenance concealed beneath a 
tangled growth of whiskers, barred my pass- 
age. 

" 'Who do you want to see?' he inquired 
gruffly. 

" 'Whom do I want to see!' I said, 'Why—' 



ALFRED THE GREAT 105 

" 'No, who, not whom/ lie returned. ' Any- 
body who uses good grammar is bourgeois and 
an enemy of the Commune. Down with fool 
laws and rules. This is the land where all 
speak and do as they choose.' 

" 'But you're not letting me speak as I 
choose/ I retorted. 'How's that for consist- 
ency?' He said anyone who was a Bolshevik, 
whatever that was, didn 't have to be consistent. 
Consistency was a jewel. Jewelry was wealth. 
The Bolsheviki were opposed to wealth and 
private property in anjy form. I was about to 
force my way past this lunatic when a number 
of other rough-looking persons, armed with 
guns and bayonets, rushed out of the palace 
and surrounded me. 

" ' I want to see the king ! ' I exclaimed. And 
immediately by their faces, or as much of them 
as I could see peeping out from beneath the 
whiskers — I saw that something was wrong. 

" 'He wants to see the Czar,' they shouted, 
and then laughed in a way that made my blood 
run cold. 'There are no more kings. They've 
been abolished. ' And one huge fellow, drawing 
a long knife out of his belt, shook it menacingly 
under my nose and began to cross-examine me. 
It took me about one-fifth of a second to make 
up my mind to be about the most enthusiastic 
revolutionist and all-around king hater that 



106 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

ever was born. 'What did you want to see the 
Czar for, eh?" he asked. 'I want to kill him,' I 
replied. And a chorus of cheers rent the air. 
But it was an exceedingly narrow escape. I 
learned later that the Czar was no more, that 
the country was being ruled by a little band of 
lunatics calling themselves Bolsheviki, and that 
it was a crime even to utter the word king 
unless a strong adjective was put before it. 

"I couldn't understand it at the time, but I 
didn't wait to investigate. I decided to get 
back to civilization by the shortest route, and 
so I projected mty astral body over to Poland. 
To save time, I'll just say that Poland was as 
benighted as Russia. No king. Then I hopped 
over to Jugo -Slovakia, I believe you call it. 
Same thing there. On I sped over the kingless 
countries of the Balkans and up to Budapest. A 
big sign on the front door of the palace: 'Beg- 
gars, Peddlers and Kings Not Admitted to This 
Building.' I moved on. I went hopefully to 
Vienna. Picking up a newspaper, I read these 
headlines: 'Open Season for Aristocrats Be- 
gins. In First Day's Shooting Twenty-nine 
Counts and Forty-three Barons Bagged. Slay- 
ing Parties Now Favorite Winter Sport. 
Special Prize Offered by Government to First 
Person to Kill King.' Two minutes later I 
was on my aerial way to Berlin. Here, at least, 



ALFEED THE GREAT 107 

I was sure I should find royal autocracy firmly 
entrenched. But as I went up the palace walk 
one glance told me that Germany, too, had cast 
off her royal rulers. Sitting on the front steps 
in his shirtsleeves, smoking a corncob pipe, was 
a slouchy, unshaven citizen whom I mistook for 
the janitor. In the old days you know no such 
uncouth specimen of humanity would have been 
permitted within half a mile of the palace. And 
who do you think he turned out to be? The 
President of the German Republic. A harness- 
maker, or cobbler, or something of the sort. I 
learned that, as in Russia, the very name of 
king was tabooed. Just a day or two before a 
prominent author had been executed for absent- 
mindedly remarking that he was fond of collect- 
ing his royalties. In a German deck of cards 
instead of having a king they have two knaves. 
So I lit out for France. Here I found they 
hadn 't had a king for many years. I inquired 
anxiously about my old kingdom, England. 
i Oh, they have something over there they call a 
king,' I was told. 'You might cross the Chan- 
nel and have a chat with him. It would cheer 
him up. ' 

"I decided to act on the hint. I didn't see 
mariy changes in London. I thought I recog- 
nized some familiar faces among the cab horses. 
I got an audience with King George by pretend- 



108 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

ing to be the business agent of the Pavers' and 
Rammers' Union. Labor is all-powerful in 
England today (where is it not?) and George 
sent word to walk right in the minute he got 
my card. He was wearing that morning the fool 
dress uniform of an Honorary Vice-President 
in the Royal Hibernian Highlanders, Ltd. As 
soon as we were alone in his private office and I 
disclosed my identity, he fell on my neck and 
wept, and called me Uncle Alf. It was very 
affecting. ' You 're the only king left that 
I can talk confidentially to,' he said, 'and 
you're not really alive. It used to be that al- 
most every country in Europe had its king and 
royal family. Everybody with a drop of royal 
blood in his veins was on the public payroll. It 
kept me busy exchanging birthday greetings 
with my fellow monarchs. I got a stack of let- 
ters from them every day. Today the annual 
convention of the European Kings' Mutual 
Benefit Association could hold its meetings in a 
telephone booth. Where have they all gone? 
Some are dead and others wish they were. 

" ' There's not much to choose between the 
mighty dead and the mighty near dead,' King 
George continued. ' Cousin Mohammed, the last 
I heard of him, was running an elevator in a 
Swiss hotel. Cousin Ferdinand was an old 
clothes man in Naples. Cousin Ludwig had got 



ALFRED THE GREAT 109 

a job as janitor of an apartment house — de- 
termined to be an autocrat to the end. Cousin 
Wilhelm was engaged in writing his auto- 
obituary and reading a book on ' St. Helena As 
a Health Resort.' Cousin Charles got upset 
and left for good. All the retired kings I know 
are retiring indeed. About the quickest way to 
unpopularity these days is to proclaim the di- 
vine right of kings. Even my oldest boy feels 
it, poor Wails. ' Uneasty lies the head that wears 
a crown. ' The man who wrote that knew what 
he was talking about. It makes the poorest 
nightcap on record. I'll s'y. 

" ' I feel comparatively safe myself, ' he went 
on, * because I'm not and never have been a real 
king. I draw the salary and hold the title and 
wear tailor-made uniforms without doing the 
work. I have no real authority. Why, I can't 
dictate to anybody except the court sten- 
ographer — when she's not too busy scrutinizing 
her nose. Shall I tell you who's the real boss 
of Buckingham Palace! (Whisper) The wife. I 
can't even spend my own money as I choose. 
Freedom of the 'shes' and all that sort of thing. 
Also, there's an Hereditary Keeper of the Royal 
Purse, and whenever I want any coin I have to 
apply to him. You've heard of the 'king's 
touch'? Well, that's it. George is the ruler of 



110 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

England, all right, but his first name is Lloyd, 
not King/ 

" 'And is there any genuine autocrat left 
on earth?' I asked King George. 'Anybody 
to carry on the traditions of the old absolute 
monarchs f ' 

" 'Just one/ he replied, 'and he's not called a 
king. His title is President. His name is — ' 



L o 



" 'George! George!' a shrill voice inter- 
rupted his Majesty. ' Did you get that pound of 
sugar I sent jyou for?' 

" 'I told you I wasn't an absolute monarch,' 
George said, as he motioned me to depart while 
the departing was good. But I wonder whom 
he meant when he said there was only one world 
autocrat left?" 

As I took my leave I could not even hazard a 
guess. 



XIV 

OLD KING COLE GIVES VIEWS ON PROHIBITION 

The city editor's assignment read: " Inter- 
view Old King Cole if sober (I mean the king, 
not you) and get his photo and pictures of the 
pipe, the bowl and the three fiddlers, if pos- 
sible, for a nice layout. Stir him up on pro- 
hibition. ' ' 

I found His Majesty at his home at the 
corner of Rye and Bourbon Avenues, planet 
of Jupiter, next door to Bacchus and across 
the street from Gambrinus. I entered his pres- 
ence not without trepidation, for I had never 
interviewed a real king before, although I am 
personally acquainted with several apartment 
house janitors and the policeman on our beat. 
But I needn't have feared, for he received me 
with the utmost urbanity. Dressed in a purple 
robe, he was sitting in a chair of state and 
looked ever(y foot a king. I just had time to 
note his typical poker face, suffused with a 
royal flush, when he gave me greeting. 

"Sit down and have something," he ex- 
claimed. "What '11 it be! Tea, lemonade, 

ill 



112 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

beerine or just a drink from the old town pump 1 ? 
Here's a new soft bottled beverage that's hav- 
ing quite a run with the boys. It's made of 
ginger, red pepper, turpentine, cocaine, yeast 
and chewing tobacco. Here 's another drink the 
|boys call the 'lame mule,' because it hasn't any 
kick. Ha, ha! Would you like to have some 
more of my jokes?" 

i 'In just a few minutes, Your Majesty, but 
business before pleasure. I have been asked to 
interview you on the subject of prohibition, but 
I had no idea that booze was under the ban up 
here." 

"Oh, yes, we had to follow the fashion. 
Queen Cole, as you may not know, has been 
president of the West Jupiter W. C. T. U. for 
years, and when America did the Sahara act, 
why there was nothing to it but we must give 
prohibition a whirl too. But I dunno. I kind 
of think we'll be back on the old basis again 
some day. 

* l Sometimes, however, I can't help wondering 
what '11 be the next great reform. Abolishing 
tobacco, prob'ly. The fellows who never suc- 
ceeded in learning to smoke are getting busy 
already, I see. If I called for my bowl today I 
wouldn't get it, and I suppose along about week 
after next, if I call for my pipe, somebody will 
tell me that all tobacco is prohibited except 



OLD KING COLE 113 

Wheeling tobies containing less than half of 
one per cent of the real thing. I can still call 
for my fiddlers three, but the next thing I 
know they'll be locking me up for running a 
cabaret without a license and a cover charge. 

"You never can tell where those measly re- 
formers will break out next. One of these 
mornings jyou'll pick up the paper and read: 
* Association for the Prohibition of Lemon Pie 
Introduces Bill in Congress. Alarming In- 
crease in Indigestion Attributed to Seductive 
Delicacy. New Law Provides for Right of 
Search of Pantries, ' There 'd be a lot of kicks, 
Jmt what's the use? Folk would go around 
wearing buttons inscribed: 'No Pie, No Work/ 
Orators would point out that the workingman 
must have his pie. Schoolboys would go on 
strike. New England farmers would protest 
that their breakfasts had been spoiled. But the 
pie amendment would be slipped in some ap- 
propriation bill as a joker, and then good-bye 
pie. 

"That would be only a starter. The scheme 
to have the government prescribe what you 
shall eat and drink and smoke is only 
beginning to get up speed. Every domestic 
menu will have to be 0. K'd by the Secretary 
of the Interior. There will be laws to make 
everybody go to bed at ten and get up at six, to 



114 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

prohibit the wearing of blue neckties with red 
whiskers, to compel the printing of all baseball 
reports in English, and to force pedestrians to 
wear license numbers, front and rear, and give 
three loud honks on approaching congested 
cross-walks. 

i ' You '11 have to get up in the morning by the 
official whistle, eat breakfast according to the 
food controller, ride to work in a government 
street car, work so many hours, play a round of 
golf on the public links, don a Bureau of Health 
mask to kiss your wife when you get home, eat 
another government meal, sit on the front porch 
and smoke a tobaccoless cigar, fight the mos- 
quitos awhile — remembering the anti-profanity 
amendment to the old Federal Constitution — 
and then go to bed when the curfew sounds, 
being careful not to transgress the state anti- 
snoring law. That's what you're coming to. 

" 'Old King Cole was a merry old soul.' Ah, 
my boy, I'm afraid the emphasis is going to 
be on the 'was.' I try to keep up the bluff that 
I'm enjoying myself; it's a tough task. Take 
away my pipe, and my bowl, and my fiddlers 
three, and you can have my job as king. A 
king will have no more fun than a commoner. 
But here comes the Queen. Sh! Sh! Not a 
word of this to Her Majesty. 

"Yes, my dear, this young man and I have 



OLD KING COLE 115 

just been having a chat about the delights and 
benefits of prohibition. As I was saying, what 
a glorious thing it is to think that husbands 
who used to hang around bar-rooms after office 
hours will now spend their evenings at home, 
sitting by the fireside reading Woodrow Wil- 
son 's ' History of the American People ' in nine 
volumes, net, and drinking hot lemonade. Must 
you go so soon! Well, good-bye. And listen: 
if you must print what I said, perhaps you'd 
better not use my name. Just say 'one of our 
most prominent citizens, } or something. Fare- 
well." 

And as I stepped into the cockpit of my 
ethereal airplane I reflected that some kings, 
after all, are no different from other men. 



XV 



KING HENRY VIII ADMITS SOME MATRIMONIAL 
MISTAKES 

1 ' King Henry the Eighth wants to see you, ' ' 
said the city editor as I reported for duty. 
1 1 Says he doesn't think we're giving hirn a 
square deal. We've printed interviews with 
Solomon and Bluebeard and Brigham Young, 
all much-married men, and let them make their 
explanations to put them in a better light with 
posterity, but for some reason he can't under- 
stand we've passed him up. Better see what 
the old boy has to say." 

"Yes," said His Majesty, as he motioned me 
graciously to a seat in his reception room, "I 
thought it only due to myself to make a state- 
ment for publication, particularly since you 
have been interviewing some of my noted — er — 
er — competitors, or perhaps I should say fel- 
low-sufferers, and setting them right with the 
public. Not that I consider them exactly in my 
class, of course. Unlike Solomon and Bro. 
Young, I did not believe in what I might call 
numerically-simultaneous matrimony, nor like 

116 



KING HENEY VIII 117 

Mr. Bluebeard did I think a man justified, what- 
ever the provocation, in resorting to the most 
extreme measures himself and taking the law 
into his own hands. Let everything be done 
strictly according to law, was my motto. I 
defy anyone, in the case of my wives, to find the 
coroner's verdict defective. I am not saying 
there is not such a thing as justifiable uxoricide. 
But I can't understand how a man could get 
up his nerve to do it. Certainly, speaking for 
myself, after being bossed by the first five, I'm 
sure I didn f t feel like raising my finger, or even 
my voice, against Mrs. Henry Tudor VI. If 
they lost their heads I do not think the whole 
blame should rightly rest on me. It takes two 
to make a quarrel. There were faults on both 
sides — especially theirs. History records the — 
that is — rather sudden shufflings-off of my sev- 
eral spouses, but it doesn 't tell the real reasons 
therefor. Sometimes it seems to me that the 
history of my case must have been written 
either by old bachelors or by members of the 
women's rights association. Certainly if exper- 
ienced married men had done the job they 
wouldn't have left out all the extenuating cir- 
cumstances.' ' 

"As what, Your Majesty?" 

"Well, did you ever see any reference in his- 
tory to the annual earthquake at St. James' 



118 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

Palace known as the Fall house-cleaning cata- 
clasm? Of course you haven't. And yet we 
husbands were afflicted with the same epidem- 
ics in those days, that seem so far away, as you 
are now." 

"I never thought of it before, Your Majesty. 
With the canning and house-cleaning seasons 
over, a modern married man begins to realize 
just how the soldiers felt the day the armistice 
was signed." 

i ' Precisely. Even though he knows the trou- 
ble is bound to recur when the germs get in the 
air again next Fall. But the man who has been 
married to only a limited extent can't begin 
to sympathize with a case like mine. The first 
few wives are the hardest. 

i i Take this matter of house-cleaning. Every 
wife has her own system, her exclusive, copy- 
righted plan of offensive campaign which dif- 
fers from everybody else's. My first wife, for 
example, believed in moving all the furniture 
out of the dining room into the hall on the very 
first day of the attack and then served all meals 
for two days in the form of a stand-up free 
lunch in the butler 's pantry. The regular hall 
furniture was moved into the parlor to make 
room for the dining room furniture. Conse- 
quently the place was so cluttered up there was 
nowhere to sit down. But of course all hus- 



KING HENRY VIII 119 

bands, even when house-cleaning is not preval- 
ent, have to stand a good deal. My second wife, 
as soon as she was inaugurated in office as sec- 
retary of the interior and speaker of my house, 
reversed all the precedents of her predecessor. 
When the house-cleaning epidemic arrived she 
collected all the furniture in the palace and 
piled it up in the dining room. On fine days 
during the upheaval I got a hand-out on the 
back porch and on wet days I ate in the cellar. 
I had just become fairly accustomed to this 
domestic arrangement when Wife III, Series A, 
appeared on the scene with some entirely differ- 
ent and equally ingenious scheme for turning 
the house downside up. So it went, each new 
domestic administration having its own pecu- 
liar policies, not only with reference to house- 
cleaning but to all forms of domestic disci- 
pline. I was willing enough to obey — I realized 
that is the first duty of soldiers and husbands — 
but I had work keeping track of the orders. I 
perceived then why so many married men were 
volunteering for my new army to fight in 
France : they wanted to get where there would 
not be quite so much discipline. 

"As I was saying, I got mixed on my orders 
and was constantly making mistakes. Wives 
so often fail to realize that accidents will hap- 
pen to the best regulated husbands. For in- 



120 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

stance, Wife No. 1 had a rule that I must be in 
by eleven o 'clock, but might stay out till twelve 
if I could tell just where Pd been. Wife No. 2 
changed the hour to ten and No. 3, if I recall 
correctly, fixed it at ten-thirty. It's not strange 
if occasionally along late in the evening I got a 
trifle mixed as to which administration was in 
office at that precise moment and consequently 
strayed a bit from the prescribed schedule. I 
could not always be sure whether I was sup- 
posed to be running on eastern or central stand- 
ard time. As a result the first unvarying greet- 
ing that met my ears on my arrival home was 
apt to assume the sharply interrogatory form. 
I always answered whenever I could distinctly 
remember. At least I did my best. Matrimony 
is paved with good intentions. 

1 ' There were other disadvantages, also — con- 
nected with what I now perceive to have been 
my mistaken matrimonial policy — which may 
not occur to persons of more limited experience. 
For instance, how many realize that I was vir- 
tually at the mercy of a soviet of my wives 9 re- 
lations? When a wife happened to shuffle off 
did her relatives immediately conclude that 
they were no longer my connections by mar- 
riage? They did not. They still considered 
themselves close relations — even closer, when I 
sought to borrow money from them. After a 



KING HENRY VIII 121 

few matrimonial administrations I had enough 
1 in-laws' to fill a convention hall. Indeed, they 
did form a sort of mutual benefit association 
and used to meet and pass resolutions of con- 
demnation on me and condolence with the new 
incumbent every time I happened to change 
wives. Sore, of course, because they weren't 
invited to the wedding. But I had to draw the 
line somewhere. In those days, as now, they 
used to term it i solemnizing ' a marriage, al- 
though that word 'obey' in the ceremony was a 
joke. And half the time I felt just like a sort 
of comic supplement. In all my voyaging on 
the seven seas of matrimony I can recollect very 
few times when I was allowed to do any of the 
steering. Looking back, life seems to have been 
just one wife after another. Why did I do it? 
Well, I read in the newspapers the other day 
a supposedly sensational story of a Boston man 
who got married while under the influence of 
hypnotism, but I couldn't see that the case con- 
tained any unusual feature." 

"Speaking of matrimony, Your Majesty (as 
you have just been doing so extensively) , have 
you any advice to offer f What do you consider 
the lucky month for marriage f n 

"Young man/' replied the king in solemn 
tones as he arose to bid me adieu, "I don't 
know anything about that. But I can tell you 



122 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

this : there are at least six unlucky ones. That 
is as far as I experimented. ' ' 

And though I possessed only one-sixth of his 
matrimonial experience, I shook the aged mon- 
arch 's hand in silent sympathy before tiptoeing 
from his pathetic presence. 



XVI 



DON QUIXOTE SAYS HE WASN 't SO CRAZY AS SOME 
MODERN REFORMERS 



As the trim figure in a neatly fitted sack suit 
arose to greet me with an odd mixture in his 
manner of ancient courtesy and the modern 
"glad hand," my face must have betrayed my 
surprise at his unexpected appearance for he 
exclaimed: "Astonished, eh? Most earth folk 
are. Seem to expect to see the shade of Don 
Quixote de la Mancha togged out in his old cast- 
iron clothes and helmet with a sword for a 
walking stick. They fail to make allowance for 
the fact that we shades progress, just like you 
people down below. We try to be as up-to-date 
as possible. I suppose you thought, too, you 
were going to interview a harmless lunatic and 
listen amusedly to his rambling conversation 
and perhaps have the fun of joshing him a, bit 
Well, I'm happy to say I've got over my delu- 
sions, or illusions or whatever they were. And 
shall I tell you what cured me ? Why, Avatching 
the antics and performances of some of you 
down on earth. My motto is thoroughness. I 

123 



124 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

want to do every job up in the most complete 
style. I will either be the champion, the record- 
holder, the biggest in the bunch or else nothing 
at all. I may once have been in a fair way to 
becoming the world's most inspired idiot and 
champion all-round, catch-as-catch-can profes- 
sional ' regulator, ' but I'm now a has-been, a 
second-rater. There's too much competition. 
I'm ashamed of myself. I throw up my hands 
and quit. Do you understand me 1 ' ' 

i ' Well, not entirely, Don Quixote. What mod- 
ern competitors or successors have you got?" 

"Do you have to ask that?" he replied. 
"Why, I can get materialized and take a run 
below and in five minutes see more fellows 
crazier than I ever was than I can count. Or 
I can just stay up here and read the newspa- 
pers. I was reading only this morning of a bill 
that 's going to be introduced in the Maine Leg- 
islature to prohibit women from wearing high- 
heeled shoes. They used to call me a fool re- 
former, but I never was quite so idiotic as to 
try to reform women's dress in the slightest 
particular. Trying to dictate feminine fashions 
would be just about as sensible as attempting 
to sweep back the ocean. The next thing they 
know somebody will be trying to tack an amend- 
ment on to the Constitution forbidding women 
to wear furs in summer and low shoes and open^ 



DON QUIXOTE 125 

work waists in winter. I see one writer calls 
the anti-high-heels measure ' Quixotic. ' That 
shows all he knows about me. I was accused of 
being slightly off at one time, but nobody ever 
charged me with utter imbecility. And I see 
that some other professional set- 'em-all-rights 
are going to put the ban on tobacco — if they 
can. They'll have some hard sledding. But I 
was glad to observe that a judge had the sense 
to turn down an application for a charter from 
an anti-tobacco association. The society's an- 
nounced object was to make the growing, manu- 
facture, sale and use of tobacco illegal. I held 
my breath until I found what the judge did. 

"And what did the judge do! Opening a 
fresh box of Havanas, he carefully selected a 
long, slender, chocolate-colored panatela, with 
a red and gold waistband, cut off the end with 
his gold-mounted clipper, fished a match out of 
his vest pocket, struck it on the ink-stand, ap- 
plied the blaze to the end of the cigar, blew a 
fragrant cloud of incense to the ceiling in wor- 
ship of the spirit of justice and perfect impar- 
tiality, gave a great big sigh of measureless 
content, and then proceeded to write an opinion 
on the subject that did my heart good to read. 
In dignified, judicial terms he affectionately ad- 
vised the anti- tobacconists to go soak their ven- 
erable heads ; he reminded them that the most 



126 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

admirable and wholly beneficial occupation of 
the human species is minding its own business ; 
and intimated that so long as the court should 
continue to enjoy unimpaired intellectual vigor 
and be in full possession of all its faculties, it 
would never authorize a movement to regulate 
the personal conduct of rational adult beings 
by organized idiocy. 

"It was an elegant set-back for the chronic 
busybodies, but I haven't much hope it will be 
permanent. Mark my words, those fellows are 
only getting ready to break out in some new 
place. If they can't prohibit tobacco they'll at- 
tack chewing gum or ice cream soda. One of 
these days I expect to pick up the paper and 
read: 'New Sundae Law Proposed. Associa- 
tion Opposed to Ice Cream Soda in Any Form 
Applies for Charter. ' I may have made a few 
mistakes that time when I was supposed to be 
a little off my balance, but I never made the 
same mistake twice. I tilted at those old wind- 
mills, as they turned out to be, but I didn't re- 
spond to an encore. Some of your modern re- 
formers are continually butting their heads 
against stone walls, and if their heads weren't 
so thick they couldn't get away with it. 

"Folks laugh at that account of my exploits 
and adventures, but they don't stop to notice 
that there are lots of fellows running around 



DON QUIXOTE 127 

loose who are ten times funnier than Don Quix- 
ote ever was. For instance, I understand you 
have a good many Congressmen-at-large. There 
are societies already comprising some fifty- 
seven and one-half varieties of butters-in, ad- 
vocating all kinds of reforms, including the pro- 
hibiting of flowers from growing on Sunday. 
The first thing we know they'll be having each 
new Congress decide whether men shall wear 
their hair pompadour or brushed down (if they 
have any), rule on the question of visible sus- 
penders in summer and settle the length of 
moustaches, coats, sermons, stockings, lawns, 
skirts, soft drinks and hatpins. And of course 
there 11 be a law compelling all persons to wear 
long faces. 

"Now, I may have been a bit erratic at one 
time, but I never got up a Society for the Pre- 
vention of Public Enjoyment. The trouble with 
lots of your reformers is, that not satisfied 
with being 'off ' themselves, the*y want to drive 
other folks crazy. They're doing it. Take that 
proposed state anti-snoring law out in Okla- 
homa. It's going to declare any person a public 
nuisance who keeps other folks awake at night 
with solos by his nasal organ. But nobody 
dreams of interfering with the scoundrel who 
dashes along the street in his automobile at two 
A. M. with his muffler cut-out. I see you're 



128 INTEKVIEWS WITH SHADES 

surprised at my keeping tab on things down 
below. There 's a reason. It gratifies me to 
realize that if I were back on earth I should 
have no trouble procuring a certificate of per- 
fect sanity after the way so many folks are 
behaving. I see one man was paid $300,000 for 
pounding another man who got $200,000 for let- 
ting him do it. And the very persons who con- 
tributed to that fund kick the loudest about the 
high cost of living. And yet they used to call 
me unsound! Puck said a mouthful when he 
remarked: 'What fools these mortals be/ The 
world is a place of perpetual change, and yet 
lots of women continue cheerfully to give up 
two dollars a curl for a ' permanent ' Marcel 
wave. Foolish men are less concerned with how 
many miles thely can get out of a gallon than 
with how many smiles they can get out of a 
quart. 

1 ' But what showed me more clearly than any- 
thing else whither you earth folks are drifting 
was a sign, on my last trip, outside a butcher's : 
1 Tongue, 48 cents a pound ; brains, 33 cents. ' If 
tongue is getting to be worth so much more than 
brains, then I'm glad I shuffled off when I did. M 

And as I volplaned back to earth I wondered 
also why our topsy-turvy world ever considered 
Don Quixote loco. 



XVII 

PHARAOH SOLVES SERVANT PROBLEM 

All the way to King Pharaoh's house I kept 
wondering how I should enter the presence of 
decayed royalty. More modern monarchs, I 
knew from my reportorial experience, were fre- 
quently regular fellows whom it was perfectly 
safe to offer to shake hands with and perhaps, 
after a brief acquaintance, to slap on the back 
and ask for the loan of a cigarette or the 
"makings." But the thought of conversing 
with a four-thousand-year-old personage who 
had retired from the king business, yet retained 
his former notions of dignity and grandeur, 
filled me with awe. Imagine my astonishment, 
therefore, when in response to my ring at the 
front door it slowly opened about half an inch, 
as if someone were trying to peek out and size 
up the visitor, and then a moment later it was 
thrown back and a commanding figure, who 
I knew from his pictures was none other than 
Pharaoh himself, stood in the doorway with a 
smile of welcome. 

"Come right in," he exclaimed. "I was 
129 



130 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

afraid at first you might be a walking delegate 
of the Dish-Breakers ' Union. " And there 
stood the erstwhile mighty monarch clad in a 
long blue-checked apron, the kind that pins up 
over the shoulders with a couple of thing-a-ma- 
jigs and comes 'way down below the belt. His 
sleeves were rolled up above his elbows and he 
had the general appearance of a cross between 
a chauffeur who had been digging in the garden 
and a butler who had taken an automobile 
apart and was now trying to put the pieces 
back again. 

"Your Majesty," I began, with a low obei- 
sance, but that was as far as I got with my 
speech of introduction. 

"Come right out in the kitchen," he inter- 
rupted affably, ' * and we can have a chat while 
I'm doing up my dishes. I understand you 
want to interview me on the servant problem. 
YouVe come to the right shop. I can talk feel- 
ingly on the subject. In the course of forty-five 
centuries of experience I've hit all the high 
spots, from the time when I had fifteen hundred 
cooks and chambermaids in the house and six 
hundred charioteers in the royal garage down 
to the cruel present, when I'm reduced to doing 
my own work. The servant problem! IVe 
solved it. I could send you out of here so 
chock full of information about it that you 



PHARAOH 131 

couldn't walk straight. Have a smoke? Mrs. 
Pharaoh objects to my smoking a pipe and wash- 
ing the china at the same time (she complained 
at dinner of a decided flavor of nicotine in the 
soup) but there's no reason why you shouldn't 
light up while I 'm finishing the job. Then, after 
I manicure the knives and forks, massage the 
sink, and take a brief and exhilarating spin 
around the dining room with my new six- 
cylinder carpet sweeper, I '11 have nothing to do 
but fix the oatmeal for tomorrow morning, in 
the jackpot or whatever you call it, put it on to 
boil and 1 11 be at your service. 

"Yes, it majy seem to you like considerable 
of a comedown," said his former majesty when 
we were comfortably settled in armchairs in the 
library, "but during the last few days, since 
I let the sole remaining servant go, I've been 
experiencing the first real peace IVe known in 
just four thousand five hundred and sixty-two 
years. Quite a long time when you come to 
think of it. You ask me to define the servant 
problem and then comment upon it. Let me 
tell you some of our recent troubles with 
' domestic assistants.' That's what they want 
to be called nowadays. Oh, yes, we have servants 
up here. This isn't exactly heaven, you know. 
Somebody has said that voyaging on the sea 
of matrimony is all right until the cook wants 



132 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

to be captain. Well, our cooks have all wanted 
to be commanders-in-chief with the pay, pretty 
near, of active admirals. And among them 
they've mighty near wrecked the ship. The next 
to the last we got, No. 19, promised to be 
the light of our existence. The light went out 
one night and never came back. Her testimoni- 
als said she was a very good cook. They must 
have been referring exclusively to her moral 
character. Her successor was described as 
'a perfect treasure ', but, according to the 
proverb, 'Riches take wings/ and she was no 
exception. In her case, however, it was just 
as well. She claimed to have cooked ten years 
for John D. Rockefeller. And it did not occur 
to us until later that Mr. Rockefeller is a 
chronic sufferer from dyspepsia. 

' ' This wasn 't home any more. It was getting 
to be a one-night lodging house for ' domestic 
assistants.' You mustn't call 'em servants, 
you know, not since they've organized. And 
they certainly are sticklers for union rules, 
union hours, union wages. Why, our last 
laundress (excuse me, I should say ' garment 
ablutionist'), refused to wash any except 
union underwear. Fact! And now I hear 
they're agitating for the three-shift or platoon 
system, like the firemen, each set on duty eight 
hours. Well, the other day we reached a crisis 



PHAKAOH 133 

when Cook 20 served notice that she'd quit un- 
less we built an addition to the garage to ac- 
commodate her runabout, and threw in an extra 
allowance for gasoline. I decided to fire the 
whole bunch: the ' upstairs girl' (whom I'd 
often consigned to the lower regions), the wait- 
ress (who believed all things ought to come to 
her while waiting), and the cook (who was 
always getting everybody else into hot water, 
but wouldn't put her own hands in) . So I made 
a clean sweep (something we could never get 
any of the servants to do) and I've been walk- 
ing delegate of the Husbands' Labor Union, 
and * kitchen police' myself, ever since. And 
it's been as peaceful and quiet around here as 
the Sahara Desert. I haven't enjoyed myself 
so much since the day the business agent of the 
Children of Israel Pyramid Builders' Union 
fell off the top of Cheops and they had to dig 
him out of the sand with a derrick. 

" There are various ways of solving the so- 
called servant problem. Speaking from an 
experience of roughly four thousand years, I 
should say the best way is to do your own work. 
It is a lot less work in the long run. But if you 
are determined to have servants, then you must 
adopt the modern viewpoint, treat 'em like the 
high-priced specialists that they are and fix up 
a regular schedule providing that the mistress 



134 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

shall have at least one evening out a week and 
the use of the parlor on the nights the maids 
aren't entertaining. Our last cook had ' Wed- 
nesday ' engraved on her visiting cards (it was 
her receiving day), and when her cousin was 
released from the penitentiary after serving 
six months for petty larceny (he stole a Ford), 
she gave him a coming-out party that kept the 
neighborhood awake until three o'clock in the 
morning. I read somewhere the other day that 
under the modern system employers and 
servants are to treat each other as equals — hut 
I don't believe the servants will do it. They're 
getting too proud for that. We made the experi- 
ment of having the cook sit with us at the din- 
ing table, but it didn't work out very well. We 
were kept so busy waiting on her that we didn't 
get half enough to eat and she criticized the 
way in which I took my soup. A better plan 
would be to have all the family eat at the second 
table. 

"But speaking of servant troubles back in 
Egypt a few thousand years ago — those were 
the happy days. Suppose one of the palace 
cooks threatened to quit because she could get 
two kopecks more a week and every Sunday out 
from a lady on the next street. We just told 
her to pack up without waiting to get din- 
ner; there were about forty-nine more cooks in 



PHARAOH 135 

the kitchen. We had so many at one time that it 
took six to fry an egg. There was one disad- 
vantage, we had the worst soup I ever tasted — 
too many cooks, you know — but there were lots 
of benefits from always having plenty of help. 
It's true the kitchen on Saturday night looked 
like a convention of the Policemen's Mutual 
Benefit Association, with all the cops calling on 
the girls, but it made us feel quite safe from 
burglars. The modern housewife is handicapped 
because she can't exert her authority. If she 
has several servants she 's afraid to fire one be- 
cause the rest might quit. And if she has only 
one she can 't fire her because she doesn r t know 
where she 'd get another. Even administering a 
mild reprimand nowadays means that you'll 
have to do your own washing. It's rather dif- 
ferent from the times when I was king and had 
a list of penalties hung up in the kitchen as a 
warning. Tough pie-crust meant three months 
in jail and the cook who burnt the toast was 
thrown to the crocodiles. I had three ser- 
vants standing behind my chair at dinner — and 
nowadays servants won't stand for anything. 
They trembled at my slightest frown — nowa- 
days they give me the shake. Every time I 
passed they'd salaam and chant: ' Preserve our 
gracious ruler.' Todajy they'd be shouting: 
'Can the king!' 



136 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

• 4 And so I say times haven't merely changed ; 
they're turned upside down. And the folk we 
used to call servants are on top. What are we 
to do? Why, if we want to be free and inde- 
pendent and rich and enjoy ourselves, we'll 
beat 'em at their own game, we'll join the 
Bread Molders ' Union or become kitchen chem- 
ists or garment abolutionists or general do- 
mestic aides-de-camp — the real successors of 
royalty. There are only two ways to solve the 
servant problem : do your own work or go out 
and do somebody's else's. I tell you — beg par- 
don, I smell something burning in the kitchen. ' ' 

Out we dashed, to find the helpless oatmeal 
suffering a martyr's fate. Pharaoh contem- 
plated the ruin for a moment and it inspired his 
parting word : 

1 * Good-bye, young man, and perhaps if more 
people did their own work for a while they 
would learn, after all, to have some sympathy 
for servants. We can't get along without 'em. 
The servant girl may be a perpetual con- 
undrum, but civilization isn't ready to give 
her up." 



xvni 

NERO DISCUSSES JAZZ 

I shuddered as the city editor announced my 
assignment. True, I had tackled departed des- 
peradoes and undesirable citizens whom I 
feared about as much in the spirit as in the 
flesh, but they were different. None of these 
could be such a formidable customer to inter- 
view as an ex-emperor who was notorious for 
his callous cruelties. 

But duty is duty, and I donned my bullet- 
proof vest, put a revolver in my hip-pocket 
with a bottle of non-spirituous nerve tonic 
which a kind physician prescribed for me, and 
sallied forth to my waiting plane. 

Five minutes later I was sitting calmly in the 
presence of the former imperial tyrant. The 
ordeal of introduction I had so much dreaded 
proved to be nothing. I had found the ex- 
emperor as approachable as a presidential can- 
didate two months before the convention and as 
willing to talk for publication as a grand opera 
star who's just lost another $10,000 necklace. 

Could this be the old monster I had read 
137 



138 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

about, I wondered, as overflowing with welcome 
he invited me to make myself thoroughly at 
home. 

"What do you want me to talk about V 9 he 
asked. "Modern music and musicians'? De- 
lighted. Then you still regard me as an ex- 
pert? I am gratified to hear it. I had feared 
that some slanderous stories that were circu- 
lated might have prejudiced Vou earth folk 
against me. 

"Perhaps a few words of explanation might 
not be amiss. You have heard, no doubt, about 
the time when, as the popular phrase has it, I 
fiddled while Rome burned? The opposition 
made a good deal of that circumstance at the 
next election. They said I ought to have got 
out and hustled with the firemen, regardless of 
the fact that I did not belong to their union. 
Every man to his trade, I say. The firemen 
played on the flames and I played on the violin. 

"Possibly, on looking back now that it is all 
over, I might have made a happier selection of 
the composition I performed on that occasion. 
It was entitled ' Keep the Home Fires Burning, ' 
a forerunner of a popular piece which I believe 
is not entirely unknown in your own country to- 
day. But that was a mere bit of thoughtless- 
ness. 

"The extent of that conflagration, also, has 



NERO 139 

been much exaggerated. It was confined to a 
few old garages in the suburbs upon which, 
oddly enough, I had taken out insurance only a 
couple of days before. One of those remarkable 
coincidences which do occasionally occur in real 
life. 

"My political enemies tried to make a good 
deal out of it, but I am glad to say they were 
unable to prove anything. My candidates for 
the Forum were elected by the largest major- 
ities on record. And if that isn't vindication, 
what is?" 

"Very interesting, Mr. Nero. But how did 
you come to take up music as a study and at- 
tain such remarkable proficiency?" 

"I took up music in the first place as a 
remedy for baldness. I was troubled consid- 
erably with falling hair and dandruff and I had 
observed that all professional musicians were 
endowed with flowing locks. I looked into the 
subject. I talked to the court barber and to 
several performers on the violin, clarionet and 
bass drum, with names ending in 'off' and 
' sky, ' who had lately come to Rome from other 
countries. One musician informed me that five 
years before he had been so bald that flies try- 
ing to skate over the shiny surface would fall 
and break their legs, but he was now wearing 



140 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

his hair in a Dutch pompadour. He was a 
skilled performer on the classic lyre. 

"I cannot say that the study and perform- 
ance of music had a similar effect in my case, 
no appreciable change being noted in the hir- 
sute adornment of my dome of thought, though 
my wife's mother did refer to my musical 
efforts as hair-raising — but there were other 
compensations. As a result of my daily prac- 
ticing on the violin — or rather nightly, my hours 
being from about one to three A. M. as a rule — 
the price of real estate in the neighborhood 
dropped twenty-five per cent, and I was able to 
buy in some very desirable properties I had 
long had my eye on — for a song. (No pun in- 
tended.) It was about this time that some one 
originated the saving concerning making Rome 
howl. 

"I also played at the Rome Asylum for the 
Insane every Saturday afternoon, and they 
were just crazy to hear me. One Friday night 
five of the inmates committed suicide and my 
political opponents, as usual, tried to make 
capital of the occurrence. 

1 i But these little things did not interfere with 
my purpose to become a finished musician- 
even though unkind critics said thejy wished I 
Jiad finished. And speaking of criticisms, there 
were some that hurt me to the quick though I 



NERO 141 

suppose history does not regard me as an 
especially sensitive creature. One of my fa- 
vorite compositions was entitled 'Through All 
Eternity. ' I presume you are acquainted with 
it. It is still popular. 

1 ' I asked a young woman one day if she would 
like to hear me play 'Through All Eternity,' 
and she replied that that would be her idea 
of — well, I don't like to say it, but you doubt- 
less recall the classic definition of war as pro- 
mulgated by one of your most conspicuous gen- 
erals. It was a cruel saying. 

' ' But you wished for my opinions on modern 
music and musicians. I don't know that I am 
qualified to judge ; not if what I heard the other 
night is music nowadays. A couple of the boys 
who were being materialized by a friend of 
Sir Oliver Lodge inveigled me into going along 
and attending what the advertisements said was 
a concert 

"As the first number on the programme, it 
was announced the orchestra would give an im- 
itation of 'jazz,' whatever that is. There was a 
crash like a pantry shelf full of dishes coming 
down, followed by a noise that was a combina- 
tion of a battle and a boiler shop. I thought the 
roof would fall in next, and I was just prepar- 
ing to slide out when the man next to me re- 
marked reassuringly: 'The agony is over/ 



142 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

" There wasn't a musical note or a hint of 
harmony in the whole slam-bang from start to 
finish. A couple of kids with hammers and an 
old tin-pan could have achieved the same effect. 
People paid two dollars and a half a seat to 
hear that, when they could hire a small boy 
to run a stick along a picket fence for ten cents. 
They called that music, and yet the neighbors 
used to kick when I played 'Way Down Upon 
the Tiber River ' and 'There's No Place Like 
Rome' on my violin at three o'clock in the 
morning:. 

' ' Then a young woman with a low dress and 
high voice came out and screamed like a patient 
at a painless dentist's. One of the papers next 
morning said she had a sweet voice, but ' lacked 
execution.' She wouldn't have lacked it very 
long if she'd lived when I was Emperor. The 
final number on the programme was a per- 
formance on the ukelele by a pair of harmless 
looking youths whose appearance belied their 
real natures. 

' ' I have read in my ' Pocket Chesterfield ' that 
a gentleman is one who never inflicts needless 
pain or suffering on others. They were not 
gentlemen. In my day we occasionally used 
racks and thumb-screws and other instruments 
of necessary torture, but we knew nothing about 
ukeleles. They had not been invented. Has 



NERO 143 

your country no Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Audiences? But it is unnecessary 
to ask. 

"Yet you moderns have one advantage over 
us ancients when it comes to music, and I am 
willing to admit it : the phonograph. It is much 
more satisfactory than any human singer or 
player, because you can shut it off without hurt- 
ing its feelings. It has a patent stop — some- 
thing the tenor or soprano lacks. If you get up 
at a concert and request the soloist in the middle 
of a song kindly to cease as her effort is making 
you exceedingly nervous, you are simply reserv- 
ing a seat for yourself in the patrol wagon. 

"But at home with the phonograph all you've 
got to do is to push the little lever and it quits. 
You can enjoy its concerts without having to 
put on a clean white shirt and an open-face vest 
and a dinner coat. You can wear the same 
clothes you did at breakfast or sit around in an 
old bathrobe with your* collar off and listen to 
Mary Garden gargle. If you did that at the 
grand opera house it would be sure to excite 
remark. 

"And now you must excuse me, young man. 
I've promised to play tonight at the Mount 
Olympus firemen's ball and I must have a little 
time to rehearse my piece — 'Fm a Eoman in the 
GloaminV Perhaps you know it ■? By the way, 



144 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

are you a musician yourself? But you must be. 
Everybody is, more or less." 

"No, sir. I can't play anything." 

"Ob, you must be mistaken. Are you mar- 
ried? 

"Yes, sir." 

"Then to preserve the domestic harmony, you 
must be used to playing second fiddle." 

As I staggered down the stairs I felt that I 
had richly earned a Nero — I mean a hero, 
medal. 



XIX 

LORD BACON MUSES ON CIPHERS 

"I'll tell you one bet youVe overlooked in 
your ramblings around with shades," remarked 
the city editor, 'and that's the chance to get 
the right answer to that Shakespeare-Bacon 
controversy. I was reminded of it last night 
when I happened across that old story of the 
woman who said to her husband: 'When I get 
to heaven I'm going to ask Shakespeare if he 
really wrote those plays/ 'But suppose 
Shakespeare isn't there?' returned her hus- 
band. 'Then you can ask him,' she replied. 
Have you heard any of the spooks discussing 
the question?" 

"I've' never even heard it mentioned," I re- 
sponded. "You may remember I had a chat 
with Mr. Shakespeare himself some time ago on 
the subject of the movies, but there was some- 
thing* in his attitude that kept me from asking 
what might have been embarrassing questions. 
And besides, as is quite common with these 
shades of the mighty, when they once get 
started talking it's pretty hard to get a word in 

145 



146 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

edgewise. I believe it would be better to tackle 
Lord Bacon and see what he has to say about it. 
If hei has a grievance he 's a lot more likely to 
talk than the man who's generally accepted as 
the author of Shakespeare's works.' ' 

I approached the eminent Lord Chancellor, 
jurist and philosopher with considerable trepi- 
dation, but like all the truly great his modesty 
and affability quickly put me at my ease. 

"You wish to know who was the real author 
of the works attributed to Shapespeare, eh?" 
he replied, with a smile of amusement. "So 
they're beginning to raise the question down on 
earth, are they? I thought those ciphers might 
puzzle 'em for a few hundred years yet. Well, 
and who do they think wrote 'em?" 

1 ' Some persons say you did, Lord Bacon, and 
others attribute the authorship to the Earl of 
Dudley and other of your contemporaries. A 
Detroit man got permission to dig in the bed of 
the river Wye for the head of the Earl, which 
was supposed to be buried there, together with 
a box of manuscripts that would prove him to 
be the real Shakespeare." 

1 i Hum, hum, ' ' mused his lordship. ' * I guess 
somebody else lost his head that time. Well, 
all you tell me is extremely interesting, I'm 
sure. And I presume even Will Shakespeare 
has his partisans, too, who insist still that the 



LORD BACON 147 

uneducated village lad from Stratford who used 
to hold horses in front of the London theaters 
for a living — and then served his term as a 
' chaser ' on the stage during the supper hour in 
vaudeville — that this strolling actor was actu- 
ally the author of the immortal plays bearing 
his name?" 

"Oh, yes, your lordship, Shakespeare would 
probably win by a large majority, if the matter 
were left to a popular vote." 

"Excuse me if I smile. The thought is highly 
amusing. I don't believe I am quite ready, as 
yet, to present any formal claim to the author- 
ship, but if I were free to speak I could — But, 
pshaw! What's the difference? There are 
plenty of similar cases of masquerading authors 
in even later English literature which no mortal 
has yet discovered. By the way, has any ques- 
tion been raised, to date, about the so-called 
Dickens novels? There hasn't? Everybody 
takes it for granted that they were written by 
Charles Dickens, the young, untrained reporter, 
who never had any education after he was 
twelve years of age, who worked in a blacking 
factory when he was ten? Well, well. You 
surprise me. Has nobody found any ciphers yet 
in his work? Not a one? Well, then look out 
for a sensation one of these days. Ciphers have 
always been my hobby, but long before I found 



148 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

any cryptic corroboration for my theory in 
Dickens' works I was pretty sure who really 
wrote them. Can you think of a certain great 
statesman, like myself, but who flourished in 
the Victorian era, a dignified, austere person- 
age who might not like to be known as the 
author of humorous works, but who might have 
got Dickens to lend his name for the purpose? 
You can't? Try again. Well, I'll make a sug- 
gestion: William E. Gladstone. Don't smile. 
Wait until you hear the proofs. Gladstone had 
a contemporary and rival, Disraeli, who pub- 
lished novels under a pen name. Later Disraeli 
used his own name and the fact did not help his 
reputation as a statesman. Each of the princi- 
pal so-called Dickens novels deals with some 
great proposed reform, such as the abolition of 
imprisonment for debt, the improvement of 
penal institutions and poor-houses, removal of 
delays in the law, the cutting of red tape in 
government offices, the wiping-out of the 
wretched Yorkshire schools. 

"Gladstone was a born reformer. For a 
long time I was pretty sure that Dickens could 
not have written these books, but I never asso- 
ciated them with Gladstone until one day I hap- 
pened to hit upon a cipher — as conclusive a 
one, I think, as any that have been discovered 
in the works of Shakespeare. Just before this 



LORD BACON 149 

I heard of the finding of the manuscript 
of a letter written by Gladstone to his firm 
of publishers, relating to the use of the name 
'Murdstone' as one of the chief characters in 
'David Copperfield.' After writing a number of 
novels Gladstone evidently felt that he would 
like to leave some more obvious clue to their 
real authorship than a cipher, and apparently 
his intention had been to call this character 
'Mirths tone,' a sort of pun upon his own name. 
But his publishers must have objected to the 
device as too transparent, for we find him re- 
plying: 'Very well. Then Murdstone let it be.' 
Another clue was afforded by the name of the 
'literary man with a wooden leg* in 'Our Mu- 
tual Friend/ — Silas Wegg. Here we have the 
initials in full in their regular order, 'W. E. G.' 
"And now," continued Lord Bacon, "we 
come to the real cipher, buried in the first of his 
longer stories, the 'Pickwick Papers/ I call it 
the Ivy Green Cipher. Why this poem of three 
stanzas was inserted in this book has long puz- 
zled students of Dickens. The ostensible ex- 
cuse for its introduction was its recitation at an 
evening party at Manor Farm, Dingley Dell, by 
the aged clerygman of the place, name not 
given, who posed as its author. But the poem 
has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of 



150 INTERVIEWS WITH SHADES 

the story. Just write these first five lines, as 1 
dictate, will you? 

'Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, 

That creepeth o 'er ruins old, 
Of right choice food are his meals I ween, 

In his cell so lone and cold. 
The wall must be crumbled, the stone 
decayed — ' 

"Now, kindry take your pencil and write 
down the first letter of the first line 's last word, 
the second letter of the second line's last word, 
the third letter of the third line's third word 
from the last (a not uncommon variant in 
ciphers of this character) and the fourth letter 
of the fourth line's last word. Those four let- 
ters, in this order, spell GLAD. Now glance 
along the next line for the word that would 
form the second syllable of a proper name. The 
next to the last word is STONE. And there 
you have the conclusive clue to the authorship 
of the Dickens novels ! ' ' 

"That seems to be a clincher, your lordship," 
I said, ' ' and I am sure your theory will create 
a sensation down below when the earth- dwellers 
hear of it. But will you not tell me whether you 
are the author of ' Hamlet' and the other im- 
mortal plays?" 



W86 



LORD BACON 151 

"You may remember, " he replied with an 
enigmatic smile, "Sir Walter Scott's answer to 
the lady who asked whether he wrote the 
i Waverly Novels, ' when they were appearing an- 
onymously I * I did not write them, ' he rejoined, 
'but if I did I would not tell you." Some very 
curious circumstances were connected with the 
writing of the works called Shakespeare's, and 
one day the world may learn of them. What's 
in a name? A rose by any other name would 
still cost twenty-four dollars a dozen on Fifth 
Avenue. ' • 

Then his lordship bowed me into my waiting 
astral plane. 

















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